actually it is not a silly question (there is no such thing as a silly
question), and the answer is not so straight.
during my three years experience as admin and mentor our team came to
the conclusion that face to face meetings are very beneficial to
community integration; to develop mutual understanding; to better
leverage the ensuing virtual communication. It is well worth the cost
and effort of organizing meetups.
In those years that I've been the admin, I've interviewed each and every
serious candidate with a complete application by phone, and I've tried
to arrange for them to meet somebody, ideally within the context of a
relevant FLOSS conference.
This year we were lucky to meet all our students - half of them at Libre
Graphics Meeting and the other half at a private meeting.
We try to work around the unavoidable constraints of physical location,
time, budget. This years two of the students had their traveling covered
by university professors. Two were practically local to the meeting and
paid their own short distance train ticket. One had his ticket paid with
community funds. For the lodging, at both location we had place on
mentor's couches; and the rest is fun.
Yuv
2007-2009 Hugin/Panotools