[guadec-list] Minutes of meeting 2017-02-21

[Sam Thursfield <ssssam gmail com>]

These minutes are also available at
https://wiki.gnome.org/GUADEC/2017/Meetings/20170220

Core team meeting 2017-02-20, in https://meet.jit.si/guadec2017

== Present ==

 * AllanDay
 * AlbertoRuiz
 * LeneRaastad
 * NeilMcGovern
 * SamThursfield

== Absent ==

 * JavierJardon

== Actions ==

 * Allan to hand over sponsorship brochure work
 * Alberto and Neil to continue sponsor search
 * Lene and Sam to tie down events so we can put them in sponsor
   brochure
 * Neil to think about keynote speakers
 * Sam to look at adding 'sponsors' section to website
 * Sam to find a designer for the poster; Andreas or Jakob may be
   willing

== Meeting notes ==

=== Events ===

Much discussion; we now have a rough plan.

Thursday: welcome drinks and pre-registration at
[[http://www.waldorfmanchester.co.uk/|The Waldorf]]

 * pre-registration is extra work but helps prevent queues the next
   morning
 * The Waldorf has a private area where we can do this
 * it's free to hire, as long as people buy drinks
 * also can open til around 3am if there is enough demand at the bar
 * city centre location, 15-20 minute walk from MMU Birley campus
 * possibility of having a buffet there if someone sponsors it
 * possibility of having drinks tokens if someone sponsors
 * we expect 70% to 80% of attendees to attend -- around 150 people,
   which is towards the high end of the capacity of The Waldorf
 * this is quite important, it's the first time lots of people have
   seen eachother for some time.

Friday: guided tour of Manchester, ending in a bar.

 * Free Manchester Walking Tours might do this for us
 * small cost involved
 * not everyone will want this, we expect maybe 50 people will join
 * we announce a venue where we will finish the tour so others can
   join after
 * daylight til about 10PM so can start ~7PM

Saturday: 20th birthday party -- 3 options

 * Museum of Science and Industry would be a perfect venue
   * staff changes mean it's hard to get details from them right now
   * waiting to find out if we can reserve it free of charge and what
     the cutoff date would be
   * can do drinks receptions, buffet or sit down meal based a cost per
     head of £12-£20 (drins) and £25-£35 (food), so overall cost would
     be in the £1000s
   * can also do a simple cash bar if we need
   * The Manchester Museum is another option but it's more expensive
     and doesn't have the same connections to technology (it's more
     about natural history)
 * [[http://www.greatukpubs.co.uk/pubzoomanchester|The Pub/Zoo]]
   * can be hired for free
   * we can organise our own catering
   * is a nightclub kinda place
   * capacity of at least 200
   * no wi-fi
   * booking on Saturday night may be hard, we might have to share
with some live music event ?
 * [[http://internationalsociety.org.uk/venue-hire/|International Society]]
   * ground floor and a garden
   * hire isn't free, but cost is low (~£500-£600)
   * food is possible
   * no bar, but we can supply alcoholic drinks
   * located down Oxford Road, ~1 mile from venue and ~1 mile from city
     centre

Sunday: football/sports

 * Brooks Building has a big room that can be used for a football game
 * Sugden Sports Centre could also be used, and would have space for us
   to have the non-football games as well. It's £84 per hour
 * Previous years held the football game in a park and combined it with
   a picnic. This worked great but in Manchester (a) there are limits
   on bringing big groups to parks, (b) it's hard to think of a good
   location: they are all far away, or too small, or not entirely safe
   and (c) it's not entirely impossible that there could be bad weather
 * what happens afterwards? Sugden sports centre is close to
   International Society venue, so an event there on Sunday might work


Also: "Friends of GNOME" drinks event. This would be a sponsored event
specifically for Friends of GNOME donors. It's generally not good
separating attendees into different events, but we could make this a
short (1 to 2 hour) thing, perhaps on the Friday night after the guided
tour?

Events during unconference days: we can pick places to meet each night,
but there are fewer people at these so we don't need to book so much.

Closing times need to be taken into account, these may be earlier than
some of our continental European friends are used to.

Events page: https://wiki.gnome.org/GUADEC/2017/SocialEvents

=== Sponsors ===

Neil will join Alberto on recruiting sponsors, starting now.

Sponsor brochure is really needed for this, next week ideally with
events and such that we can offer to potential sponsors. Blocking
brochure is:

 * text content is rough
 * it's targetting multiple conferences (GUADEC + GNOME ASIA) but
   needs to refocus on just GUADEC
 * events are not clear yet
 * Allan was working on this but is busy with the 3.24 release

=== Announcement / promotion ===

Sam wrote text for a poster, not much feedback but messaging seems
fine.

Needs a designer to lay it out nicely, not everyone will have seen the
message on guadec-list or engagement-list.

=== Registration ===

This is mostly waiting on PatrickUiterwijk to bring up the
https://monikra.me/ identity system.

OliverGutierrez is also still improving the design & layout.

=== Keynotes ===

Sam contacted 1 but he cannot speak this year (next year though!)

Neil will see if he can think of people.

Alberto suggested another person.

How many keynotes do we want? Three core days -- but one core day has
the AGM, so maybe only 2 keynotes.

=== Inviting people to birthday party ===

The membership committee say that we can email all current & former
Foundation members to invite them to the party.

== Next meeting ==

Next meeting will be Monday 27th Feb at https://meet.jit.si/guadec2017.

Allan cannot attend next week.