[guadec-list] Minutes of GUADEC team meeting 2016-12-08

[Sam Thursfield <ssssam gmail com>]

These minutes also available at:
https://wiki.gnome.org/GUADEC/2017/Meetings/20161209

Core team meeting 2016-12-08, at https://meet.jit.si/guadec2017

== Present ==

 * AllanDay
 * JavierJardon
 * AlbertoRuiz
 * SamThursfield

== Actions ==

 * Sam and Javier will apply for bank account
 * Alberto will research on-site card payments
 * Alberto & Allan to push sponsorship brochure forward
 * Sam to add support for accommodation booking to regcfp

== Meeting summary ==

Progress on [[../../Tasks]] was discussed.

=== UK bank account ===

 * GNOME Foundation may not be allowed to have overseas bank account, so
   would prefer if this account isn't linked to them in any way because
   they'd need to consult with an accountant first.
 * Alberto may not make sense as a signatory as he hasn't lived in UK
   for all of the last 3 years

We'll apply with Sam and Javier as the only trustees & signatories. It's
possible to add Allan or Alberto later.

We can get a debit card each, and can share statements to ensure
everyone is kept in the loop and things can function if both Sam &
Javier become unavailable at some point.

==== Taking card payments at reception ====

Alberto suggests [[https://www.izettle.com/gb|iZettle]] so we can take
registration fees from people during the conference and allow them to
pay by card. We need an Apple device.

Alberto can look into what we need and if there's a better solution.

=== Pay venue deposit ===

Payment was approved by the Board, invoice has been sent to board-list
so this should be in progress.

Alberto asked if they will pay using
[[https://transferwise.com/|TransferWise]] to save on bank fees; Allan
says the Board doesn't have an account with them right now athough it is
on their todo list.

=== Accommodation ===

Our proposal for university halls has been approved by the Board; no
official news yet, but hopefully the signed contract will be sent over soon.

This means we need to be able to sell them at registration:
https://github.com/puiterwijk/regcfp/issues/157 is the relevant issue.

=== Sponsorship brochure ===

No news on this front; Allan & Alberto will look at moving it forward.

Last year's can be used as a template, although that was rushed in some
ways.

Should we include LAS in the brochure? Allan thinks Sri prefers to handle
that separately.

Should we include GNOME Asia? We have done in the past, but we should
check with this year's local team.

Alberto: It should include more content on *why* to sponsor GUADEC.

There's a problem with having 3 different organisation teams talking to
the same companies about sponsoring GNOME events. This used to be solved
by having an Executive Director who handled such things.

=== Website ===

Alberto will discuss this in person with Carla & Oliver next week.

They could perhaps help with the sponsorship brochure too, depending on
how much free time they have.

We should aim to get a static page up as soon as possible.

=== Schedule ===

The schedule isn't always decided by the local team, although it could
be.

Our current venue booking says we will be out of the venue by 18:00 on
the Saturday and Sunday; we can ask to change this but probably not at
the last minute.

==== Workshops ====

One sponsor mentioned to Alberto that they got a lot of value from
workshops.

We've not thought about these yet. Doing them on day 0 seems
problematic; but on day 4 (first BoF day) is practical.

Should we charge? Unclear; Sam has emailed Benjamin to see how much we
made on them last year.

None of us 4 have bandwidth to organise the workshops, but we need to
expand the team anyway so hopefully we can find someone who wants to
take this on.

=== Announcement & promotion ===

The dates are now set (July 28th to August 2nd 2016). We should announce
ASAP, but, probably wait until there's a website to point at.

Hopefully the basic website will be done in early January; let's aim
to announce then although it depends on Carla & Oliver's free time.

Coordination of initial announcement:

 * blogs (Planet GNOME)
 * Twitter -- Alberto has access to @guadec
 * Marketing Manchester
 * University
 * [[https://madlab.org.uk/|MadLab]] if we can find the right people
 * [[https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Manchester|Manchester Free
   Software]] & [[http://manlug.org/|ManLUG]]

We should also be reaching out to other local usergroups, hackspaces,
co-working spaces etc.

==== Call for papers ====

Can begin as soon as the infrastructure is ready.

==== Use of Mozilla Persona ====

Work to replace the no-longer-working Persona system is in progress:
https://github.com/puiterwijk/regcfp/issues/156

Patrick said in IRC that the replacement service for Persona will be ready
this week.

=== Logo ===

Perhaps can be done as part of website work?

Each year we design based on iconic buildings of the ciy.

Here's a starting point:
http://www.mdpag.org.uk/wp-content/themes/mdpag/images/accessible-manchester.jpg

=== Sponsors ===

Some progress but no major news. Lots of potential sponsors have said
to contact them again in early 2017.

If/when we get a new Executive Director they would help with this task.

Some discussion of GNOME's position in the automotive space; recent
events including Bosch's announcement last year, and the license change
of Qt to GPL3 are relevant.

Alberto would like to ensure GUADEC is relevant to automotive companies
where possible; but isn't able to talk to those companies in all cases.

=== Parties ===

Marketing Manchester have got quotes & reserved some venues around the
city.

We will try and do some site visits towards the end of December. Alberto
will not be able to make these.

== End of minutes ==

Thanks for reading!
Sam