[Debconf-team] Overall DebConf status update
Hi Team,
It has been brought to my attention that there are people in the DebConf
team who want to follow our progress and be helpful, but who do not have
very much time for IRC. To fix the problem going forward, I'd like everyone
to try to use email status updates more, and I'd like to ensure that meeting
summaries get emailed to the list. (Damyan is already working on one for the
January 20 meeting.)
As a catch-up overview, here are the statuses of DebConf9, DebConf11, and
DebConf10 (in that order):
DEBCONF9
========
Almost done with this one, finally! We just need a (corporate) sponsorship
team text, and then Marga has agreed to assemble the final report. Aside
from that, we have one or two sponsors left to get money from, but then we
can close this one out.
DEBCONF11
=========
All three bid teams (Banja Luka, Bosnia; Munich, Germany; Quito, Ecuador)
are making great progress on preparing their proposals. Through the month of
February, we are currently using a chunk of time in each global team meeting
to receive status updates from DebConf11 teams, and the final decision
meeting will occur on Saturday, February 27th beginning at 17:00 UTC for up
to three hours. Separate reminder emails will be sent about this.
DEBCONF10
=========
We are in very good shape. A development instance of Pentabarf is actively
being used to clarify the attendee part of the interface and update it for
DebConf10's needs. The detailed changes were already emailed to this list in
my "Registration proposal" thread, though I'm planning to make a few more
small tweaks beyond that.
By the end of this weekend the production instance of Pentabarf will be
prepared, as will the registration announcement, which means we will open
registration!
Regarding talk selection, a call for papers announcement may go out together
with the registration announcement, but Richard Darst has made an
interesting suggestion regarding session chairs for creating cohesive
topic-based blocks of talks during the conference. This was sent to the
mailing list and resulted in some on-list discussion; it will also be
discussed at the next meeting.
On the visa front, we have gotten a visa successfully issued by the US
Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, which is not an easy task. In general our
lawyer has quite a streamlined process for handling visa applications.
We received a housing agreement from our venue, Columbia University; this
has been passed on to SPI's lawyer for review and a properly revised version
of this will get signed in time for us to pay the 20% deposit by Columbia's
March 22 deadline.
Local team member Pablo Duboue has done much work on the sponsor brochure;
we will have three different versions this year, for governments,
small-to-midsize businesses, and large businesses. He is planning to ramp up
contacting sponsors soon and generally lead the sponsorship team. He has
gotten past sponsor contact information, advice from past sponsor team
leads, debconf-team svn access, etc.
We are beginning to investigate catering options, but are still in the
initial exploratory stage with this.
Next meeting: February 3, 21:00-22:00 UTC, #debconf-team. A separate
reminder will be sent.
Thanks for your interest!
- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy@debian.org
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