[Debconf-team] report sarajevo
I will keep the file in svn updated. you can read it on the web here:
http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/debconf-data/dc7/venues/?rev=0&sc=0
hot
cross culture
bullet and granate holes in streets and houses
Minarets, mosks, women rights, balkans
Student dormitory
=================
capacity 900 beds
2 medium rooms a 200ppl (packed)
150 ppl restaurant
100 ppl cafe area
19€/day/person
2 or 3 bed rooms
light weelchair enabled
internet and network installable as we wish
small modern hotel accross the street
24 beds
12 rooms
mosk, cultural center
280 ppl auditorium
5 * 32ppl lecture rooms
100ppl kitchen, cantina (negotiable?)
possibly hacklabs
limited opening hours: Mo-Fr 8:00-16:30 (negotiable?)
free of charge
=> 300 fully sponsored people for less then 50000€
questions
- other, nearby hotel for other corporate guests?
- how reliable is the cultural center?
- can we have hacklabs and lunch in the center?
- can we NOT have passport checks at the center?
- can the cultural center (aka saudi arabia) sponsor flights from
other arabic/islamic countries?
- will it be actually work out with the internet connections and
the network infrastructure?
- very nice payment terms (10|90)
Hotel Terme
===========
capacity 400ppl
4+ different sized meeting rooms for bofs and small talks
1 bigger lecture room for 200+ ppl
33€/person/day
high standard, no extra hotel needed
rooms with 1 or 2 beds (no 3???)
fully wheelchair accessible
outside park
payment terms like (30-30-40)
=> 300 fully sponsored ppl for 90k€, which is too much
everything in one place
tighly integrated
questions:
- will wired infrastructure be installed by then?
- how to restructure the pricing model in order to pay the hotel?
Local team
15ppl
differnet backgrounds (pupils, students, professionals, men+women)
organizing experience
heterogenous
aparently dedicated
sincere, authentic impression
motivated by
- desire to help bosnia catch on to free software (which adoption
was hindered by the war)
- desire to further the youth
- desire to collect experience for career
- help debian
Sarajevo
========
Sarajevo is not a very touristic place and still is marked by the
war. Everyone we would interact with participated in
the war actively or passively and perhaps lost friends or family
members. Many house fronts have bullet and some even granade
impacts. Still some troups from the EU are in the country.
Prices are really low. food and drinks are cheap by "normal"
standards. People are friendly and helpfull, and many in Sarajevo
seem to speak enough english to communicate.
Temperatures are higher then i am used to: 32°C on the first day.
One tries to avoid moving too much and stays in the shade.
Traveling in the tram with many other people is not very
compfortable. But mornings and evenings are very nice and I was
very surprised to not be bitten by any mosquitos.
Currently the only way from and to the small and quite Airport is
by taxi. It is possible that public transport will be available
by next year.
Cross-Culture
-------------
You see lots of minarets and mosks and some churches. Many women
wear headcovers, aparenly even if they are not muslim themselfs.
The most striking experience was when we were hosted and lead
around at the arabic culture center by a lady wearing a full
length garment and headcover who spoke excellent english,
obviously smart and intelligent and who treated us polite but
strangly firm.
I, coming from sweden where gender equality is considered
self-evident, found myself wondering occasionally about men
honking their car´s horn at women and pointing and commenting
openly. At the same time the women we met and interacted with (at
the LUG) were self-confident and determined.
The Student Dormitory
=====================
The dormitory is located near the airport and is Y shaped, tall
building. It is at least 20 years old (actually it might have
been part of the olympic village which was also in that area of
town). It is clean but clearly used. When we came it was in full
use. The small appartments had two rooms: the one with the beds
and other furniture and the bathroom. Eventhough it was a warm
day outside the rooms seemed not too hot, even withough air
conditioning installed.
The bathroom we saw had a sink, a toilet and a shower. There was
no shower curtain or basket for the toilet paper (so the latter
might not be needed). The two bed appartment was perhaps 10m^2
and plain and simple in design. The three-bed rooms are slighly
longer but similarly shaped to make space for the extra bed.
The self service restaurant in on the second floor. Our meals
would be served here. and cafe were connected by stairs and the
cafe could extend the restaurant. The kitchen in the back of it
would aparently provide plain fare and appeared clean.
There are two rooms that could be used as hacklabs with an area
of perhaps 100m^2 each. Additional areas for hacking could be
created by extending the cafe with chucked up canvas cover.
There are three elevators, one of them wide enough for
wheelchairs.While the elevators and ramps would allow wheelchair
drivers to move around and use the building freely, the bathroom
doors appeared to be too narrow for Otavio's needs. Other
wheelchair drivers used the place before but perhaps could
be moved more easily.
Rooms and public areas would be cleaned regularly (daily?), new
bedsheets would be replaced every three days or by demand (?) and
towels would we switched every day.
Private laundary service would be external and payed by the
participants, with pick up service.
We were given permission to install our own network
infrastructure as we please. Blueprints might be provided.
Nearby Hotel
------------
Close to the student dormatory, aproximatly 200m away across the
street, there is a small hotel with 24 beds (in 12 rooms). It is
very modern and it could be used for people like Otavio or People
who think the dormatory would be too plain for them. (We had more
corporate participants at earlier debconfs.)
An other hotel is 2car-minutes further up the road. (This needs
to be investigated further).
Arabic Culture Center
---------------------
An other 5minute walk from the hotel (slighly under 10min from
the dormatory) is the arabic cuture center. It is heavily
sponsored by the saudiesand appears well equiped and modern.
We had to hand in IDs to access the compound (since it is
Saudi-Arabic terretory). Some people at the place were wearing
fashion as i only knew it from islamic countries, with full
length garments for the women who hosted us and head cover (but
visible face) and one men i saw was wearing the short trowsers
and beard that are characteristic for some extreme islamic
movements (Taliban?).
The opening hours of the place are currently 8-16:30 on Mon-Fri.
People from the LUG believe it is possible to extend them
according to our needs.
Usage of the facilities would be free of charge and it might be
possible to get (travel) sponsorship for arabic/islamic
participants of debconf.
Should we be able to use the place no ID checks or limitations on
the participants would be imposed. It would be a chellange for
both sides, though, to respect the characteristics and limits of
the other culture (and to behave well) and muster tolerance,
should the limits be violated.
Dormatory - Summary
-------------------
The dormatory seems to offer all the required features for a
debconf. It is plain and simple and does not offer a high level
of compfort or luxority. It is clean and fullfills all our needs
regarding food, space for hacking and accommodation. The culture
center is in my compfortable walking distance (given it is not
too hot outside to move, at which point everything becomes
uncompfortable). That means it is too far for americans and
australians and some people will attend talks in the culture
center in blocks as in Helsinki (instead of on demandlike in
Brazil). This could be compensated for by having lunch in the
center and have additional hacklabs there, too. Internet and
local network is not yet installed and would require work and
focus by the local team. During the conference the debconf team
would have to carry the full load of the conference
The culture center requires further negotiation and checking and
remains an uncertanty factor.
The dormatory is only available when no students are around,
which would be hottest time of the year (jun-aug).
The excellent pricing and payment terms makes this venue the
cheapest and economically most attractive one ever.
Hotel Terme
===========
Like the Dormatory the hotel is close to the airport. It hosts
meetings and other conferences on a regular basis and seems to
have an active and up-to-speed marketing manager. She would be
our contact person, too.
The meeting rooms, conference facilities and equipment would be
included in the per head/per day price. It is possible that
internet and network infrastructure will be installed by next
year. The hotel reception would take over the conference bags,
room allocation and check in according to our specifications. She
seemed reluctant to give us floor plans or blueplants. The LUG
might be consulted for the network and wiring planning and
implementation.
We asked if they could cope with participants arriving and
departing in small chunks over a periode of days and could cope
with some paying for themselfs and some being fully sponsors. The
answers were not totally consistent, since she seemed to say it
was no problems to manage people individually and then later that
people should be payed for by us.
The reception is open 24h/day.
My personal feeling is that she underestimates the challanges and
complexities of debconf and carefull and detailed communication
with her will be requireto ensure a smooth conference-workflow.
The Hotel also offeres laundary service, but also stuff like
swimming pools, health services, etc that we dont need.
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