[EuroPython] Exact dates for Europython

[Jacob Hallén]

Hello folks!

To begin with, I'd like to apologise for not calling to meetings. I have been 
extremely busy and unfortunately Europython items have had to stand back for 
a while. I now have some items for Europython at the top of my agenda.

I've listed some of them below. I would prefer to have a discussion on the 
mailing list to start with, and then we will make formal decisions in a 
meeting a little later.

One of them is to set down the exact dates for the conference itself. We have 
reconfirmed with SGS Veckobostäder that they have reserved their rooms for us 
from 26 June to 3 July.

SInce we would probably prefer to have the main sprint activities after the 
conference, rather than before, this suggests that we should do like last 
year and hold the conference Monday-Wednesday, setting the conference dates 
to 27-29 June.

I would also like to suggest that we keep the arrangements with a pub on the 
first night of the conference and a banquet on the second night. For the 
banquet, we are talking to a new chef who is hot on the idea of cooking for 
us. This should mean better food for the vegetarians. For the pub, I think 
last years arrangements were a success and we should be able to repeat that.

We also need to set the scene for keynotes. Last year we had Guido and Mark 
Shuttleworth. We were also late booking the big auditorium, which left 
Guido's keynote in the main conference venue. We should fix this by booking 
early.

The things we need to decide about keynotes are
a) is 2 keynotes enough, or do we want a third one? If so, when should we have 
it?
b) Steve Alexander has suggested asking Adele Goldberg to be keynote speaker. 
Personally, I think this sounds great. Should we ask her, or do people have 
other names they would rather prefer?
c) Do we ask Guido to hold a keynote again? I sort of assume yes, but I want 
to confirm that this is the general sentiment.
d) are people happy with having the keynotes at the end of day 1 and 2?

Next thing is conference rooms. By holding the conference after Mid-summer, we 
get a 50% discount on the rent for the rooms. This means that even with 
possibly increased prices, we should be able to increase the amount of space 
we have without increasing the conference fees. For instance, we could have 
the biggest room, 2 large ones and one small one. We could increase to 3 
large ones and no small ones, but if we improve the scheduling, I don't think 
that will be necessary.

In the feedback there were a lot of people asking that we serve breakfast. If 
we want to do this, I think it should be included in the conference fee. 
Otherwise we would probably have to take an economic risk by guaranteeing a 
certain amount of breakfast sales for the restaurant. My guess is that if we 
are conservative in the increase of conference space, we should be able to 
include breakfast with no rasie or only a modest raise in conference prices. 
So, please tell me what you think about serving breakfast.

This is all that comes to mind right now. I'm sure I'll be back with more 
soon.

Jacob