Talk:Project grants/Transport for WikiIndaba Creative Commons event

Discussion

Hi Douglas (and WMZA), thank you for the application. The members of the Grants Committee will get back to you soon with any comments they may have. -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 16:41, 2 June 2014 (BST)

Comments from CT Cooper

Hello Douglas. This is one of the more unusual applications we have received, but I'm currently inclined to grant it. This may not be strictly within Wikimedia UK's jurisdiction, but I see no reason why Wikimedia UK can't make a reasonable contribution given our current financial situation compared to other chapters. If I'm reading this application correctly, you are asking for £500 to hire a bus to transport fifty Wikimedians to and from a Creative Commons event within the city of Johannesburg. I did initially think that £500 is a lot of money for this, but that does only work out at £10 per person (£5 each way), which seems reasonable.

I'm currently presuming that walking/public transport is not a viable or safe option here. Is that the case? Also, is £500 an exact amount or just an estimate of how much hiring the bus will cost? If we've got to use estimates, then estimating a "worst case scenario" might be best, with any underspend dealt with later on. Finally, one small condition of receiving this funding might be to add Wikimedia UK as an official partner for Wiki Indaba 2014. Is this okay? CT Cooper · talk 18:11, 3 June 2014 (BST)

Hi CT Cooper, you are correct. We are indeed going to use the money only to book a bus to transport 50 of us to and from our event location to the Creative Commons event location within Johannesburg. Unfortunately public transportation within South Africa is very underdeveloped and the only option we have in that regard is the newly completed Guatrain but the down side of using it is that we would still need to charter taxis from the Guatrain stations and the train stop at 9:30pm which means we would all be stranded at the Creative Commons event. No an ideal situation. On the up side we have found secured a quote from a bus company for a great deal less than the original quote we got. As such I am happy to say that we are now only asking for R6,400 or £360. I am updating the grant application accordingly now with the quote we have received. --Wikimedia ZA (talk) 10:47, 5 June 2014 (BST)

Regarding the other issues. The origninal £500 was based on a quote we had recieved for this. I can adjust the updated grant request amount up from £360 back to £500 (or some number in between) just in case there are unexpected costs or we have to use a different bus company? As for adding Wikimedia UK as an official partner for WikiIndaba, we would be more than happy to make this happen.--Wikimedia ZA (talk) 11:02, 5 June 2014 (BST)