IRC Meeting #7

Time/Location

The meeting will take place in the #europython channel on freenode at 19:00 CET on Friday 21st March.

Present

Laura, David, Paul, Lennart, John, Samuel, Marius, Jacob, Zeth, Christian.

Agenda/Minutes

• Talks/Themes

  • We decided the basic ground rules for themes and the durations of talks in the last meeting.

  • Laura mentioned Steve Holden's Teach Me Twisted presentation at PyCon. People seem generally positive about trying the same thing at EuroPython, perhaps as part of an Open Space/Unconference day.

  • Workflow discussion (how the talks will be handled)

  • Samuel asked about the call for talks. Laura asked about the system used for PyCon UK. John mentioned using e-mail for submissions, and another system for putting the material online, with scripts to generate the HTML for a manually-organised schedule.

  • Jacob suggested using this simple, manual system, just to get going. David suggested setting up a private mailing list for submissions.

  • John and Paul will work to set up a mailing list on europython.org for submissions.

  • Samuel, Jacob and Laura expressed interest in revitalising the refereed papers track. The problems appears to be that we don't have any recognised academics on the programme committee who can lend credibility to the effort.

  • Paul will report back on any feedback about themes and theme captains.
  • David will report back on any progress in asking people about tutorials.

  • Limited reaction on the Wiki (one speaker, one participant), no reaction on mailing lists.

  • More discussion is expected about open spaces, Laura's code clinic idea and the unconference concept that Christian helpfully described on the list.

  • Paul suggests asking participants for unconventional ideas; David suggests asking sponsors, too!

  • Marius will tell us what he found out about the hotel's video conferencing capabilities.

  • The hotel provides an ISDN videoconferencing solution and charges 600 LTL for equipment hire (1 EUR = 3.45 LTL), plus 12 LTL per minute for outgoing calls to the USA. Marius has the contact information for the director of the conference centre, but we need someone to coordinate things between him and the people at Google. Laura will contact Google and hook them up with Marius and the other people on the ground.

  • Christian will report back about copyright assignment forms for filmed contributors.

  • Useful link: http://www.europython.org/community/Talk_Suggestions

• Registration/Budget
  • Progress of the test registration page

  • John showed an in-progress registration page and asked for more information about fees and tutorials. Laura and Jacob suggested some improvements. Paul, John and Marius discussed the possibility of online hotel booking, and considered that linking to the conference hotel's own booking form might be sufficient.

  • Progress of the budget and fees - Laura/Jacob may have obtained more information about this from Aiste.

  • Payment systems - investigations and discoveries - Laura will report about the current status with WorldPay

• Feedback/Surveys
  • Progress on the processing of last year's surveys
• Sponsorship

  • Offers/packages/candidates - we need more information about costs from the venue for having booths, streamers, etc.

  • Here is a draft of SponsorOffers

• David will give Jacob feedback on the draft.

• In the last meeting, we talked about potentially offering sponsors the opportunity to have their own SponsorSpaces in extra rooms at the venue.

• Discussion is expected following the happenings at PyCon

• Publicity/Web site (status of previously discussed fixes/enhancements)
• General discussion (if necessary)
  • Sprints
  • Keynotes

Actions

• John, Paul, Zeth:

  • Set up a mailing list on europython.org for submissions and make the necessary changes to the Web site.
  • Put out a call for participation/submissions?

• David:

  • Get in touch with the tutor mailing list owners to ask about publicising tutorials on the list.

  • Give Jacob feedback on the SponsorOffers document.

• Marius, Laura: Marius to help get someone in Vilnius in touch with Laura and the Google people to make the videoconferencing arrangements.

• John: Make the suggested changes to the registration page.