[EuroPython] Decision points and call to meeting

[Jacob Hallén]

Hi everyone,

It is time to gather and make some important decisions about Europython 2005.

I would therefore like to call to a meeting this Tursday, 20 January 2005 at 
1700 CET. The place is as usual the #europython channel in the freenode IRC 
network.

If you have anything you want to add to the agenda, send an email to the 
europython list as soon as possible. If you can't make the meeting, but there 
is something you really want to be in on, send an email to the list, and we 
will save it for later.

Since I have heard very little on the list after my message of 8 December, I 
assume that a number of items will be a mere formality to decide. I have 
listed those first on the agenda. Items that require more discussions come 
later.

0. Introductions, meeting procedure

1. Dates
Monday 27 June - Wednesday 29 June 2005

2. Arrangements
Lunches, pub and banquet similar to last year. Laura talks to new caterer for 
banquet.

3. Rooms
VA (150), VB(150), VR (180) and VG (70) to be reserved. (see last years site 
map)
The big auditorium will probably not be available before 1800. I suggest 
extending the lunch break to 1.5 hours, to make better use of the time.

4. Keynote speakers
We invite Guido again.
We invite Adele Goldberg.

5. Key points in time
This is my proposed timetable. Does anyone want to change anything, or add 
more time specifics?

- 31 January - Call for talks and call for papers opens

- 28 February - last day to submit proposals for refereed papers

- 15 March - Registration opens

- 30 April - last day to submit talk propsals

- 15 May - last day of Early-bird registration

- 17 June - last day of pre-registration

6. Sponsors
I suggest we keep the same sponsorship costs as last year.

7. Track chairs
My current list of track chairs looks as follows. Please tell me if your name 
is not on the list, but should be there, or if it is on the list and 
shouldn't.

As you can see, we still have vacancies in Applications and Zope lightning 
talks.

Tutorials/Neopythes
Harald Armin Massa
Harald Armin Massa <ghum at gmx.net>

Python Language
Michael Hudson
Michael Hudson <mwh at python.net>

Python Frameworks
Jeremiah Foster
Jeremiah Foster <jeremiah.foster at gmail.com>

Zope/Plone
Paul Everitt
Paul Everitt <paul at zope-europe.org>

Business
John Pinner
John Pinner <john at clocksoft.com>

Applications
Vacant

Refereed papers
Armin Rigo
Armin Rigo <arigo at tunes.org>

Science
Nicolas Chauvat
Nicolas Chauvat <Nicolas.Chauvat at logilab.fr>

Social skills/General topics
Beatrice Fontaine
Beatrice Fontaine <bea at webwitches.com>

Education
Aroldo Souza-Leite
"Aroldo Souza-Leite" <asouzaleite at gmx.de>

Lightning talks
Anna Ravenscroft
Anna Ravenscroft <rev_anna_r at yahoo.com>

Zope Lightning talks
Vacant

8. Breakfast
We can get breakfast at the student union for SEK 50/person and day (~5.50 
Euro). This would include coffee, tea, juice, yoghurt, cheese sandwich and 
ham sandwich. Do we want this? If we have to increase our prices remains an 
open question. We may save enough on cheaper locations.

9. Price structure
I suggest we keep the same general structure as last year. I would like to add 
the following though:
- Speakers who pay after the earlybird cutoff pay an extra 10 Euro.
- Speakers who pay at the conference pay an extra 50 Euro.

Motivation: People paying late add uncertainty and there is no real need for 
speakers to pay late. People paying at the conference is a real bother and 
have to pay a steep premium for being that late. There were several speakers 
paying at the conference last year and they were a hassle.

10. Refunds
We did not have a refund policy last year, which was something that bit me.I 
had controversies with a couple of people. I would like to suggest that we 
have a policy of refunding everything except an administrative fee of 20 Euro 
for cancellations more than 30 days before the conference and make no 
refundds for cancellations later than that. We will allow switches of person 
attending until the time of arrival at the conference. This is slightly more 
generous than most other conferences.

11. Cheques
Cheques are a big bother. We can either say that we don't accept cheques or we 
can attach a 100 Euro administrative fee to them. Our bank charges about 50 
Euro for cacheing a foreign cheque, and it normally takes an hour of queueing 
to get to do it at all.

12. Website
The website structure should be ready to be filled with contents. We should 
arrange a short sprint when we get together a number of people and get it 
done. Suggestions for a suitable time appreciated.

13. Registration system
The registration system is ready for demonstration. I intend to hand out demo 
accounts and give everyone a quick walkthrough before the end of the meeting. 
You can then do your best to trash the demo system for a few days before we 
set up the real thing and go live. The registration system still needs to 
plug into the web payment system, but we have some time before that has to be 
finished.

14. Budget
I still need to make a revised budget. There are some small adjustments that 
should be made, but I'm actually quite proud of the budget I made last year. 
We were not badly on the wrong side anywhere and the reason we have money in 
the bank is mainly because our keynote speakers were a lot cheaper than 
budgeted, and that we actually had many more people paying at the door than 
we expected. Since we can't rely on either of those factors, we should not 
try to make a tighter budget this year.

15. Report on email sent to all of last years attendees
I wrote a better script for the mass emails. About 20 emails bounced. I will 
groom the list. Two volunteers for the Education track showed up. Two people 
sent messages saying that they wanted to be speakers and were looking forward 
to registration opening.

Cheers

Jacob