[Debconf-team] Minutes from today's meeting
Hi! These are the minutes from today's meeting:
* DebCamp: how open/closed should it be?
We all seem to agree on this: it should be closed enough to not be
holidays for some people, but a working camp for everyone who wants
it. So, we'll try to re-enforce the point that it's a working camp,
and use some or all of the ideas that were sent to the list to help
the atmosphere. We will reserve the right to throw people out of
hacklabs if they disturb. Or make them switch to the "loud" hacklab if
they are being loud on the "silent" one.
* Hotel Status
There are problems on this point. There was a misunderstanding due to
the fact that the girl with whom we talked has quit: there's another
conference booked for the 7, 8 and 9. (last days of DebCamp, including
the Saturday). This booking currently takes 4 of the 7 conference
rooms available at the hotel. The hotel people are now going to try
and negotiate with the other conf, to see if we can agree on something
that is good for both of us. The worst that can happen is that we have
to stick to the conf rooms without wifi, that only have access from
the outside.
I'll be pestering them until they give us a solution, hopefully one
that doesn't mean that much hassle.
* Pentabarf status
The 0.3.x release is running currently. Not fully working, so blocked
for everyone != admins. Ganneff and mhy will be working on it for this
week. Making the necessary changes to migrate the data from the old
version to the new one. When it's ready, people will be able to reuse
their accounts and simply need to "subscribe" to dc8. This should be
ready in order to make the registration call Monday/Tuesday next week.
Other penta stuff: the video extension done last year needs to be
redone for this version, des is in charge of that. An "assassins"
module probably needs to be added.
* Call For Papers / Opening of Registration / Timeline
CFP should be starting on January 29th (next Tuesday), goes until March 31st.
March 31st also ends the period for sponsored accomoddation or food.
The accepted talks should be announced by the end of April.
A couple of batches of travel sponsorship grants should be sent
between April and May.
June 15th is paper submission deadline.
* Sponsorship status
+ Lufthansa doesn't sponsor anything outside "environmental projects".
+ Sledge has contacted all of last year's sponsors, or asked the
contacts involved to talk to them. Several have already committed
"same as last year".
+ HP wants to pay soon, but will not be giving us the same amount as
the past years. Currently they want to go for 25k USD. We would like
to try to push them to 30k, maybe with some special event sponsoring,
so that they get to the Platinum category (and the deserved
recognition for the past years support).
+ Freifunk can lend some APs again. We have to see if it's convenient
regarding shipping/taxes.
+ Regarding local sponsors, most work will be done in March, since we
are currently in the middle of the Summer holidays and it's very
difficult to get to talk to the decision-making people. They won't be
giving too much money, anyway.
We have to make a realistic budget soon. Currently it's difficult
because of the hotel troubles, but hopefully this will be solved soon.
We also need to work out the best way to get the money from Europe to
Argentina, since some companies don't like the "Donation Commitment"
too much.
* Visa plans
For most attendees' countries Argentina does not require a visa. For
those that is requeired, it should be quite easy to get one (as in no
"letter of recommendation" hassle), yet the process will probably be
slower than with other embassies, so people need to start that early.
A list of countries which need visas is already up on the webpage, and
it will be updated a few months before DebConf. A memo to all
embassies will be sent out ~4 months beforehand for the people who do
need it.
Martin Albisetti (beuno) will be in charge of this area.
* Press plans
Madduck was not around, so we couldn't get much on this point. The
CFP will probably need some press release, so this should be
coordinated.
For the record, I was unsure about the amount of coverage we want for
DebConf (not Debian Day) and everyone agrees that we need lots of
coverage.
* Other stuff
+ DC7: almost done, still waiting for Sun, about 150GBP to pay for
postage for bags. Tax returns can be done and the Government will tell
us how much we owe. Then the rest can go to Argentina.
+ We will have some "penalties" regarding people that had been granted
food+accomoddation last year, and either didn't cancel or canceled at
the last minute without a valid reason. Since the info for this is a
bit scattered, we need to work on collecting it.
+ We discussed asking people to pay for the "confirmation" but agreed
to only go with the penalties for this year, and let the possibility
of paying for next year, if it goes bad again this year.
Next meeting date: February 18th, 20:00 UTC
--
Besos,
Marga
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