2009/9/7 Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net:
In general, I've been wondering whether it would be worthwhile for WMUK to generally offer limited amounts of travel funds for Wikimedia- related activities, such as attending appropriate seminars/ conferences or to carry out research somewhere et cetera. A typical maximum could be something like £20, but with special cases allowed. The catches would be that the recipient would have to first give good reasons in order to get the funding, and then give a report back afterwards. Depending on the event, the report could be to the board, on wiki, on the mailing list, in the newsletter, in the form of a blog post or some combination of the above.
Depending on the activity, we could then provide the money out of either the WMF grant or out of general funds. Typically recipients would probably have to be WMUK members, but exceptions might be allowed in exceptional cases. It's then an additional incentive to become a member.
I think it would be a very good thing for WMUK to fund people attending conferences. We already have £500 allocated from the WMF grant for precisely this, so I'm not entirely sure why this is still in question! I would suggest you delegate allocating funds from that budget to the Conference Director - there is no need for the board to vote on everything. Once the WMF grant runs out a budget for this should be provided from general funds.