FOSS4G 2016 Meeting minutes

IRC chat 2015-10-26

• time: [p.m. CET]
• IRC-channel: freenode / #foss4g (directly in browser: webchat)
• Chair: Till (TA)

Agenda

• general timetable
• urgent tasks
  • homepage
  • sponsoring packages / status
  • marketing materials / spread the word
• program
  • status of programm committee
  • status on cfp-system
• status of PR & M team
• early birders/ early interesters
• misc

2015-10-09

• Locality: terrestris office Bonn
• 12.30 - 17.00

Participating: Marc, Gert-Jan, Konrad Seyfert, Till Meeting with PR & Marketing team

Minutes

• PR & Marketing must start now
• PR & M-Team must work together with other teams, such as sponsoring, program comittee, financial or webpage-team and also PCO (WCCB)
• there are some time critical interactions between PR & M and other teams, so time planning is important!
• targets:
  • OSGeo target: "promote our software"
  • LOC targets:
    • cover costs (650 vattendees as break even)
    • lower atttendance fees
    • get the 1000
    • good quality on all levels
    • BBQ (socializing)
• products
  • conference program, venue, social events, town of Bonn
  • meet people
  • interchange knowledge
  • sponsor packages for individuals such as NGO's, communities, companies, gov's, academia etc.
  • bring your own-contribution
• we expect 75% of "FOSS4G affin" attendees, but want at least 25% non-FOSS4G affin attendees
  • people from organisations, companies etc. that are not geo/gis-centric, UN, traffic, defense, insurances, etc.pp.
  • also people from neighbouring disciplines, such as CMS e.g. etc.
• between these two groups, there is a number of GIS-affin people, that are not aware of FOSS4G, we want to attract them as well
  • these come from proprietary GIs companies
  • Remote Sensing people
  • ...
• for this, contents must be defined -> program team
• slogan is needed. "FOSS4G 2016 - build bridges in Bonn" is a suitable sub-title for the conference
  • bridges between communities, countries, people...
  • Also the wording "Join us for ..." is a suitable word and stresses the Rhenish mentality
• exhibition must fit into WCCB
  • idea to make kind of oriental marketplace ("Kasba") with booth, coffee stations, tables etc. - this will open an often boring exhibition place and also fit into WCCB
  • Conrad Seyfert asks with WCCB, if use of tunnel as presenting room is possible (fits better into concept)
  • CF clears also, which booth are possible at what costs
• Pr & M needs budget, TA suggested 5k for now, team agreed
• role of Textkoch was discussed
  • TA talks to Textkoch for an hour-based support for marketing especially in the D-A-CH room (german language)

2015-10-07

• Locality: LUXX Bonn
• 19.30 - 22.00

Participating: Anja, Oliver, Till, Martin, Danilo, Astrid, Torsten

Agenda

• BoF with LOC Team 2015
  • Till and Volker met the Korean LOc in Seoul. Some of the discussed issues will be discussed later.
  • For coupled scial event with conference Sanghee calculated with 20% not to come to social event. For us this means to offer the possibility to check "I attend to social event" when registering, although social event is included anyhow
  • Seoul Team had some travel grants and reduces prices for some students (-35%), paid from a budget where attendees were able to pay more (donation)
  • Decision who became a travel grant was made based in world bank list of countries
  • Deliver space for poster&map sessions, no pre-oganisation took place on that
  • registration in Seoul: 45% Early Bird, 20% in last three days before online reg. closed (!!), 5% on site, total 562 attendees
  • Seoul offered just to make workshops without joining the conference - TBD!

• Early Bird - How do we get people to register early
  • In general (also others from OSGeo requested): Ensure time overlap of Early Bird and publishing of the programme
  • Seyfert says "it must hurt2 - so think about higher price range between Early Bird and normal (now: ~570 <-> ~650)
  • Open Workshop Reg. with Early Bird and tell the people that Workshop places are rare (they are!!)
  • BaseCamp is an issue, because only Early Birders will get place here (only ~80 places)
  • Offer special T-Shirt for Early Birders with logos of the past F4G conferences on the ack and the possibility to "x" the ones, the attendee has been

• Free tickets
  • In the calculation 10% of non-payers are calculated, Till wants to lower that (which will lower general price)
  • Seoul had the rule, that no one got a free ticket (including Sanghee)
  • we want free tickets for the LOC, but who is in really in the LOC? Need more discussions on that
  • 30-35 free tickets for student-helper-program
  • invited speakers should get a free ticket as well

• Code Sprint / BaseCamp
  • Need to contact Bonn tourismus because of nearby apartment hotel (->Till)
  • Code Sprint scheduled Sunday noon to Tuesday (23.8.2016) evening and Saturday-Sunday (27./28.) because before BaseCamp is already booked by FROSCON
  • BaseCamp completely booked for week from 21.8. - 28.8.

• Twitter Account
  • Till got credentials from the Seoul team
  • need one/two persons who regularly twitter news
  • issue for meeting with PR&Marketing guys on friday (09.10.2015)
  • What about Facebook, others ? (-> PR & M-Team to decide)

• Postcards
  • need new ones
  • layout should be changed slightly, Martin contacts Anton for that
  • Till will order another 2000 (?)

• Videoteam
  • ask at WCCB for costs (Seyfert, MediaCompany) and outfit for video team
  • perhaps offer money to CCC-team, that makes the video stuff at FOSSGIS instead of paying WCCB?

• Homepage
  • need general information section, need later, but can collect ideas now in WIKI (where get prepaid sim-card, where souvenirs, ...?)
  • Till asks Camren to contact Anja so they can make a plan which sites are needed
  • Till lists issues needed for registration, need to decide how registration works ("buy" Küstenschmiede for a consulting day?)

• Sponsoring
  • high pressure on finishing the sponsorship packages
  • uncouple sponsorship and exhibition, sponsors can buy extra exhibition space

• Misc
  • bank account is ready, Fred will transfer OSGeo money (minus pre-paid consulting of MediaCompany for Proposal) to that account
  • need to know, how mails to <name>@foss4g2016.org can be forwarded (Till requested that already from his administer, publish over list)
  • Till contracted PCO via "Support", so for this year they just plot the hours and bill them, new agreement needed begin of 2016
  • 09.10.2015 (terrestris office): Meeting Gert-Jan, Marc, Till and Conrad Seyfert

2015-09-02

• Locality: LUXX Bonn
• 19.30 - 22.00

Participating: Anja, Uli, Oliver, Carmen, Matthias, Till, Martin, Danilo, Hinrich

Agenda

• GeoSummer 2016 in Bonn. Report from Uli, Martin, Torsten, Till about meeting on 08.18.2015
  • we missed that issue
• general Timetable setup by Uli and Till
  • Uli is the time-table-responsible
  • Uli hacks timetable into WIKI and asks tems to refine their own timetables. The aim is, to recognize cross-links and to avoid, groups waiting for each other
• Sponsoring packages and additional packages
  • first draft of sponsoring packages is on the website
  • we changed "exhibitor space" from sizes to yes/no. We have to work on this issue, as we do not know, how WCCB works, if there is a booth builder, etc.
  • we added some tasks sponsors may add to their package, such as "lenyards, Ice Breaker, Coffe Break, etc.
  • Till is against too high early bird discounts (proposal 5% before xx.xx.2016)
• Geohack-Weekend 20./21. of August 2016
  • need to reserve BaseCamp for one more day
  • pullman coach excluded, as this is traditionnally used by FROSCON for childs overnight
  • Matthias from FROSCON contacts Uli, so we can work together here, reduces the beds we have, but also the risk not to fill every availability
  • add Mapserver to "interested project" list
• Workshops - state of the Art
  • we have 8 rooms in GSI and 2/3 in Deutsche welle fixed, we can cancel them without costs up to 60 days before event
  • this gives us room to check for better places (BIT, Cesar?)
  • none has PC's
  • idea is to buy used PC's (e.g. "lapstore") for around 150€ and place them at disposal for e.g. "schools for Africa" or "GeoforAll" or whatever...
  • we might run 8 workshops (in GSI) with Pc's and make to "bring your own" workshops. To be discussed with Program Committee

2015-08-18

• Locality: terrestris rooms
• 11.00 - 12.00

Participating: Till Adams, Martin Arimont, Uli Rothstein, Torsten Brassat

• spontaneous meeting after meeting with Bonn City, MediaCOmapny, IHK and University about "Geosummer Bonn"

Agenda

• Geosummer Bonn 2016
  • we agreeed, that without FOSS4G there is no Geosummer at all
  • we want to express our aims on a Geosummer, for this, we collect our ideas here
  • we have to be aware that Geosummer and FOSS4G might compete for the same sponsors (especially local business)
  • potentially we might consider this in our sponsoring packages
  • beside the foreseen BusinessB2B we might think of further business meeting between local GeoBusiness and others uncoupled from FOSS4G

• Financial plannings
  • TA and TB agreed to start a monthly financial review. First kickoff will be in september.

• timetable plannings
  • UR and TA will meet on monday (24.8.) so set up an inital timetable and think of milestones for the planning teams

• events
  • UR ensured MA his assistance for the event-planning
  • TA will forward program drafts from Bonn Tourismus for fieldtrips and family program to MA

2016-07-15

• Locality: FOSS4G Conference, Como, Room V08
• 13.00 - 14.00

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_Europe_2015_BirdsOfAFeather#Room_V08

Participating: Till Adams, Jeff McKenna, Gert-Jan van der Weijden, Arnulf Christl, Franz-Josef Behr, Astrid Emde, Peter Löwe, Sanghee Shin

Agenda

• Lessons learned from previous FOSS4Gs
  • 2103 delegate feedback (extended survey) & overall result: [1]
  • Reflections by the 2013 LOC

• Timeline/Planning
  • Milestones?

• Marketing
  • Targets/goals
  • Relationship with FOSS4G-EU (2016??).
  • Relationship with FOSSGIS-2016

• Project organisation
  • Relationship LOC - FOSSGIS - OSGeo Board: who is principal, who is contractor? + financial aspects (who's risks and who's benefits)
  • Budget (general, and per theme/aspect/team) + treasurer
  • Tooling (plain mail + SVN, or something fancy such as basecamp

2016-07-01

• Locality: LUXX Bonn
• Participating: Till A, Carmen T, Astrid E, Arnulf C, Oliver R, Anja L, Uli R, Martin A, Axel S, Andreas S

Minutes

• Codesprint
  • Astrid and Uli visited BaseCamp
  • Location is suitable for CodeSprint
  • cool if CodeSprinters would stay there anyhow
  • TODO Arnulf: contact people in question before
  • Arnulf thinks of a WLAN test with at least 30 devices
  • need for electric stuff such as sockets, cables -> passed to Oliver R
  • need for communication to BaseCamp about realiability electric power net
  • Uli wants to have a budget but difficult because of uncertainy about how many attendees we will have
  • BaseCamp has two caterers, we can ask for lunch

• Homepage
  • some suggestions but nothing essential
  • we favour the system "who wants to edit is allowed to do" -> get account from Carmen
  • nevertheless Anja offered to co-ordinate the homepage a little bit (content)

• Discussion about "Bonner GeoSummer"
  • Meeting is 19.08.2015 at MediaComapany in Bonn
  • Discussions whether we want to participate or not
  • agreed that Uli, Till and Torsten will attend, Martin checks for his availability

• Sponsorship
  • Arnulf wants to talk to Worldbank as sponsor
  • discussion about "CoC" for sponsors

• General
  • TODO Till contacts Bonn Tourismus gmbH in order to get also hostel beside BaseCamp into our Hotel list
  • TODO Till also asks for potential "family" programme during the week
  • first thoughts about how to manage free tickets for LOC / who get free ticket
  • some thoughts and call for ideas about a kind of "travelsponsorship" for people from developing countries
  • Athina, Arnulf and Till have a meeting with UN Spider on 2.7.2016 (Minutes soon from Arnulf)

2016-06-27

• Locality: LinuxHotel Essen
• Participating: Till A, Katja H, Carmen T, Astrid E, Olaf K, Torsten B, Volker G, Anton P, Frederik R, Athina T, Mark G, Danilo B, Arnulf C, Dominik H, Matthias E, Marco L, Oliver R.

Minutes

• Till opens the meeting and goes through the agenda.
• Please join the list foss4g2016@lists.osgeo.org for all all planning
• Officially tasked people can request a dedicated mail-address following this template: name@foss4g2016.org Please contact Till Adams.
• Fix sponsorship levels and packages (Hinrich, Arnulf)
• Implement Angel/Helper System. Katja Haferkorn volunteers (see FOSS4G 2016 Teams)
• Team will evaluate whether to offer day care (also to attract.
• Cost of regular ticket incl. Social Events (tbc) (this is a veeery conservative estimate and will definitely go down over the next 6 months).
  • Early bird: 570€
  • Regular 650€
• FOSS4G will fit in nicely with the Bonn "GeoSummer" event chain which includes the EarSel conference in July and other interesting side events. There will be a follow-up meeting with the Bonn Event Management team on August 19 2015.
• Engage Bonn city marketing folks to support community requirements (code sprints, meetings, mapping days, etc).
• Chair of Bildungsurlaub: Dominik Helle

2015-06-10

• locality: LUXX Bonn, FOSSGIS/FOSS4G-Orga Stammtisch
• participants: Torsten (TB), Uli (UR), Martin (MA), Danilo (DB), Anja (), n.n. (), Till (TA)

Minutes

• Till talked about state of organisation
• discussion to move Ice Breaker from Botanical Garden to BaseCamp
  • we tend more to Base Camp because it's easier to organize
  • perhaps ask at Harmonie in Bonn-Endenich for possible alternative
• Martin Arimont took the chair as event manager:
• Danilo likes to assist Carmen with workshop facilities and organisation -> has to ask Carmen, if OK for her
• Uli Rothstein thinks of taking the chair for the code sprint organisation
• Torsten had contact to some banks and asked for conditions for a bank account
  • decision: open bank account at Volksbank
  • Till has to bring a paper from FOSSGIS
• Till updated the chair list and added the volunteer chair
  • http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2016_Chairs
• Till contacts former chairs for numbers of participants for
  • Code Sprint
  • Ice Breaker
  • ...?
• All chairs need fossgis-Emails
  • Till contacts Marco again

2015-06-02

• locality: Bonn, terrestris
• participants: Athina (AT), Carmen (CT), Arnulf (AC), Till (TA)

Minutes

• Documentation moves to OSGeo Wiki (http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2016). Privacy related content is managed in the internal Wiki at (http://134.119.5.200/wiki/)
• Carmen Tawalika manages the Workshops (Thanks!). This includes:
  • Facilities
  • admin contact points,
  • Signposting
  • Transport
  • ...and many more things. See also FOSS4G_Handbook#Workshops and please update that page as you go and discover more important things.
  • Alternative facility options for workshops with a focus on good accessibility form the conference venue are currently explored.
• Sponsorship; Hinrich gets supported by Arnulf.
• Athina coordinates further cooperation with the UN Offices in Bonn.
• The Marketing & Outreach team is forming around Gert-Jan van der Weijden and Marc Floemans. We still need support from the German community. We are also evaluating professional support offered by Timo Thalmann (Textkoch) and Monika Rech (Rheintext).
• Till will contact the organizers of the BarCamp Bonn on 18. Juni. im Stadthaus Bonn at 18:00. Feel free to join.
• We are still looking for somebody to organizes the Code Sprint. We are already evaluating different venue options but the concrete organization itself should e4ventually be managed by a dedicated person.
• Website design will be provided courtesy of Küstenschmiede (many thanks, folks!). Development will start at the next FOSSGIS Hack Weekend end of June.
• The website will launch three weeks prior to FOSS4G 2015 in Seoul.