On 2018-08-23 11:27, Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm creating a new thread to write a summary about how we are with
> accommodation. Please, feel free to ask/suggest anything.
>
> Until our (global + local team) fist presencial meeting in Taiwan, we were
> thinking we need to receive the money from SPI using a local trust
> organization to pay the hotel. Global team told us SPI can pay the hotel
> directly with an international transaction. And this is much better for us
> (local team) :-)
>
> Since June we are negotiating with Nacional Inn Hotel because:
> - It is the nearest hotel from the venue.
> - It is a good hotel.
> - It has a lot of rooms and bedrooms.
> - The staff has been kind with us. Before someone say it's not a great
> thing the hotel staff be kind with us, I would like to say it is not true
> to everybody here. Like I said before, some hotels believe they are doing a
> favor hosting us, even we paying a lot to them. Not be kind with customers is a
> issue here in Brazil in some places. In Curitiba usually sellers are
> kind with costumers, but sometimes, not.
>
> After DC18, we (me, Daniel and Terceiro) had a meeting with Lucimara (Nacional
> Inn) to told her the money will come from abroad. We said to her that SPI could
> pay with international wire-transfer, but she said they had tried to do this
> with other event on the past and it didin't work to them. She said the best way
> is using credid card.
>
> I asked to Martin Michlmayr (SPI) if it's possible to pay the hotel using credit
> card, and he said it will be possible. Yesterday he called to Jacyrah
> (Lucimara's boss) and they started to deal with this.
>
> Nacional Inn proposed a schedule to pay (considering currency conversion today):
> 2018-10-01 10%: USD 5,908.31
> 2019-03-01 50%: USD 29,541.53
> 2019-07-01 20%: USD 11,816.61
> 2019-07-26 20%: USD 11,816.61
> TOTAL = USD 59,083.07
>
> Since from the beginning we (local team) and Lucimara agreed we must have a
> contract. It is not done yet because we were dealing with how SPI will pay
> the Hotel. We have until october to write it, and insert details like what
> happen if we cancel the reservations, what we can do and what we can't do
> there, what the hotel offers, so on.
>
> I would like to explain I feel uncomfortable when some of you seem don't
> believe we already had thought about write a contract, for instance, and repeat
> many times the paymants only will be done if there is a contract. I know the
> intention is not to be mean with us, but everyone needs to remember how
> stressful it is to organize an event.
>
> I can say for me (and I believe the others members here feel the same): I am
> committed to always asking for help, and always being transparent when I have a
> problem. I'm very help to organize DC19 because I will help Debian Community
> and I will learn a lot how to organize a international event, but I believe we
> can teach too (why not?) with our experience to organize local and national
> events. So, trust us too :-)
I know firsthand that organising a DebConf is a lot of work and creates
a lot of stress, but I think this issue is about more than trust.
I'm sure you are a perfectly capable organiser and that the DebConf19
local team will do a great job at organising DebConf19, but you have to
put yourself in the global team's shoes too.
No one from the global team has seen the contract yet (I understand it
has not been written yet) but yet you have money approved by the DPL to
pay up the hotel.
In my head the process would have been:
1. Write a contract and get it approved
2. Get the budget
But it went the other way around.
I don't think it is critical and I'm sure everything will be fine in the
end, but I don't blame people for reminding you that we need to approve
contracts before payments are made.
We've seen that kind of mistakes before in previous DebConfs and it's
the role of the global team to make sure it doesn't happen again.
> And I have a request: please, you don't need always to remember how difficult is
> to deal with money in non-US-Europe countries because we have don't use the
> same US system. It is sad to hear complaints about how difficult was to send
> money to Brazil in 2004, to Taiwan, to South Africa (I think). We are not better
> or worst than US-Europe, we are just different. When I hear complaints about
> that, I think "maybe it will be better to have DebConfs only in US and Europe
> to be easier to everybody", and this is not inclusive with non-US-Europe
> countries.
>
> About how many slots (beds) we were planning to have at hotel, after I talked
> with Terceiro and Adriana yesterday, I believe I found the problem: I was
> thinking to have as many beds as possible to everybody who wants to come to
> DebConf19. I mean, even a person that is just a user, who never had contributed
> to Debian, but wants to come, we could offer a bed for free. My thought was: if
> we have a lot of beds, we will looking for to have a lot of attendees :-) I'm
> not saying we will not have newbies, but probably I was thinking to have much
> more, and it seems to be a mystake. Learned :-)
So how many bed are you currently thinking of renting?
I think it would be nice to have a team meeting soon on IRC. You are
already doing a lot of work (and it's nice!) but I've had trouble
keeping up.
:D
--
,''`.
: :' : Louis-Philippe Véronneau
`. `'` pollo@debian.org / veronneau.org
`-
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature