BalCCon2k25 #78
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mindshare/tickets#78
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About you
Name: Momcilo Medic
FAS username: fedorauser
How do you primarily contribute to Fedora? (2-3 sentences):
Fedora ambassador for many years. Manning the Fedora booth at various events, helping in organizing RPs, sprints, giving talks, translating, etc...
About the event
Event name(s): BalCCon
Event dates: from 19th September 2025 to 21st September 2025
Event location(s): Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia
Event URL(s): https://2k25.balccon.org/
Event description(s) (2-4 sentences per event):
Major goal is to gather all the communities from the region and abroad so we can socialize, hack, play, learn, exchange knowledge and experience and, of course, party together.
Requested support
Swag needs: Same as previously #62, to avoid customs issue, we can ship the swag to my friends in Belgium. We need swag appropriate for an event with ~300 visitors.
How will you use Fedora budget for this event?: buying 4 tickets
This event & Fedora
Are you a speaker or presenter? If yes, give the title and description of your presentation: no
Are you an organizer or volunteer? If yes, explain your role: no
Why is it a good idea for the Fedora Project to have a presence?: This is the place in Balkans where hackers, free and open-source enthusiasts gather. Talks are similar to the ones delivered at FOSDEM with slight incline towards hacking.
Why do you want to represent the Fedora community here?: If Fedora is to be at any event in Balkans, it must be this one.
Are there others in the Fedora community who could help this event be successful? If yes, name any key individuals, teams, or SIGs in the Fedora community needed for success: Nemanja Milosev (nmilosev), Natasa Sukur(nsukur), Bojana Medic (littlecat), ...
Other
set status to To do
Hi @fedorauser1 , I am reviewing the Mindshare committee requests for Justin while he is out of the office for a while. Thank you for submitting your request, however can you confirm the following please:
Thanks again for supporting Fedora and we will certainly look into this request for you!
Hi @amoloney and my excuses for omitting those two crucial bits of information.
In my mind I've clearly stated both, but after re-reading I see that I didn't 😄
Due to reimbursement issues with Serbia, it's best to just buy the tickets using Red Hat card.
Not to worry, I probably misunderstood the booth part anyway 😄
Thank you for confirming the cost. As Justin is still out Ill let folks from his red hat team who are covering for him know about this request to see if there is budget to approve this. Ill get back to you as soon as possible.
+1 for the continued participation and Fedora Project presence.
+1 thanks for representing us @fedorauser1
+1 from me too!
+1
set status to Done
So, we learned a few things on this event request. Despite the enthusiasm and the resounding support for the event from the Mindshare Committee, we were unsuccessful in reimbursing @fedorauser1, and he has confirmed on Matrix that we can cancel out the reimbursement.
Why did this happen, and how can we avoid it next time?
First, it is important to know that we did successfully fund this event in past (#62). Momcilo is based in Serbia, and it is actually quite difficult to send money from abroad to Serbia. How I did it last time was that I personally paid for the event tickets from my own funds as a bank transfer on the local team's behalf, and I was able to seek reimbursement successfully from Red Hat. This was because we knew sending money from outside Serbia was difficult, and this was the easiest, most straightforward way of doing it. We did follow all legal checks and reviews through the Red Hat BEAR process.
However, I was on leave during the time this ticket was proposed and voted on. I regret that I was unable to convey this historical context at the time when it was needed. We approved the event with a commitment to reimburse Momcilo later, but we ran into the issue with sending money to Serbia. In today's reimbursement process, I can only reimburse in USD. There is no way to send USD easily in a way that Momcilo could access. We looked into Revolut and Wise, but these were unsuccessful for him, from his attempts to onboard to those platforms.
The lesson learned here is that there are some countries we should be aware of that are extraordinarily difficult to send reimbursements. As the Fedora Community Architect, I am committed to finding a way to fund events and activities in these regions where possible. Because the conference has a way to pay by bank transfer, I was able to pay the conference fees myself for the group, and get reimbursed by Red Hat for my payment made. I'm not sure how we would solve this challenge for a small event like a Release Party unless there is a way that I could pay for some approved costs remotely by foreign credit card.
I think the best thing we can do for now is think about how we can swag distributed to Momcilo and the local Serbian team to support the important work they are doing to represent Fedora and the Fedora community in Serbia. We have a long history of a few dedicated Ambassadors and Advocates in Serbia, and I want to help y'all be as successful as you can in representing our community.
At the moment, we are nearly depleted on swag globally. But we will address this going into FOSDEM, most likely. We could either hand over some swag in Brussels or explore shipping options into Serbia later. However, I am aware that customs can be quite a beast even for some simple things like stickers, shirts, and pens.
A good TODO might be documenting the countries that need special consideration for reimbursement. I know Serbia and Brazil are two such countries.
I'm sadly closing this ticket, but I hope that we continue to see more from our amazing Fedora Serbia community in the future!