You might want to read this first.
(1) Re NESTA, I don’t understand what “not strictly sponsors” means. Howard Rheingold says they paid part of his hotel bill. Is that not classified as sponsorship?
(2) How many other geeks had their hotel bills paid or part paid by NESTA?
(3) What else did NESTA pay for?
(4) Why did BERR decline to tell the Register (on the record, at least) how much they’d put in?
(5) Why did Karyn Barnes from East of England International tell the Register to submit a FoI request to find out how much EEI contributed? Why didn’t she just tell them?
(6) From the Register’s article: ‘”The trip’s a junket,” is how one of the Traveling Geeks, Susan Mernitt, described last year’s holiday in Israel.’ Is the same true of the London trip?
(7) What was the total cost of this trip to the UK taxpayer?
If this is true, then it’s an absolute joke that their meetup in London was something you had to ‘pay’ for, to attend. They should have been publicly available for all and any of the public to meet and greet, especially if they were paid for with our tax pounds.