FOSS4G 2014 Planning Meeting 3rd December

== Note Next Meeting: 5:45pm Tuesday December 17th at Renewable funding ==

''== ACTION ITEM: Please log into the Symposion demo that Darrell is hosting and raise any red flags asap, as Greg and Sam are going to get going soon. ==''

Attending

 * In the Room: Darrell, Matt, Tanya, Molly & Beth from VTM, Elizabeth from EVHDesign,
 * On the phone: Neill, Percy, Sam from CUGOS

Agenda

 * Logo Concepts
 * Website
 * Registration Platform
 * Constant Contact
 * Eventbrite
 * RegOnline (used by FOSS4G Nottingham)
 * Presentation Platform
 * CadmiumCD
 * Precise
 * OneWorld
 * Symposian (Open Source, Django-based)
 * Academic Committee
 * Marketing
 * Sponsorship
 * Other?

Logo Concepts
Elizabeth attended to discuss the logo process which is on a fast track to deliver a completed design by Dec 23th. We discussed her concept boards (https://www.dropbox.com/s/25lzgqjzaqoprfo/ConceptResearch.pdf) and thus far concepts 1, 4, 3 are the leaders. She will have first draft logos from these soon, and Darrell will circulate electronically so that people can vote. The favored logo direction will be elaborated on and refined in subsequent rounds.

Website & Presentation submission
Sam & Greg have stepped up from CUGOS to help with the website - whoohoo! They are thinking that they could help us with either a static or CMS site (Django or Wordpress).

Symposion (https://github.com/pinax/symposion) is an open source Django-based CMS and presentation submission platform that Darrell suggests we all look at. Barring any strong objections, it looks like it could do everything we need from a web and paper submission perspective, and be something that we could host ourselves. Darrell has set up a test instance here: http://garnix.no-ip.org/ You can login to the test instance to experiment with email: darrell@garnix.org and password "foss4g".

-->> ACTION ITEM: Please log into the Symposion demo Darrell is hosting and raise any red flags asap, as Greg and Sam are going to get going soon. <<--

Registration systems
VTM has researched three options summarized here: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#search/molly/14291c057d7471fc?compose=142b6adff883cdd6&projector=1

Basically, Constant Contact is the simplest (probably too simple). Eventbrite and RegOnline are close to equivalents on cost, but many locals have used Eventbrite in the past. Both require us to have a merchant account like PayPal to handle the money. Eventbrite has a slight edge due to familiarity, so barring any last minute objections we will go with it.

Academic Committee
Nottingham did a call for committee members, and then elected a chair from there. Percy will contact the 2013 Committee chairmen and see if they are interested in renewing for 2014. We will also strongly request that the process be Abstract first, followed by full paper, Rather than full paper up front.

Eli raised the topic of the OSGEO journal and getting a guest editor (e.g. Gary Sherman) to ensure that the journal comes out on time for the conference. People liked this idea - needs some follow up.

Marketing
Eli recapped the marketing meeting from Monday night. They came up with a theme: map it, code it, brew make it, build it, share it, etc. Other topics covered included press releases, media and student passes.

Came up with a press release schedule with themes, and a draft end of year / happy new year press release.

FOSS4G email aliases
Eli will follow up with getting these set up. We will go for the following 3 aliases:
 * Media (Darrell)
 * Sponsors (Eli)
 * Info (VTM, Matt, Darrell)

Sponsorship
Packet Text by December 15th (Tanya) Glossy after Dec 23rd logo delivery

Hotel Blocks
We are going to go the most conservative route with minimal hotel blocks so as to prevent major risk. Two hotels will be specified:
 * Doubletree (primary) - closest to venue, $139 rate, and
 * Staybridge (economy option) - $109 rate, within MAX connection distance, includes breakfast.

Timbers game
We will start conservative with a small block of 15-20, and add this option to the Eventbrite registration, expanding our block as necessary if it look like it could be popular.