<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">Steve:</span><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8000001907349px"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px;font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Thanks for the good and important question on "affordability" and "cost control" that you posted on Friday. </span><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px;font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">At this juncture, it would be very difficult to provide an "all in" cost for attending the show; that level of planning comes with the "proposal", should we have the opportunity to present one. That said, w</span><font color="#000000" style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">e 100% agree that affordability is an important driver and we want the largest and most diverse attendee pool possible. We are working very hard on this issue and are prepared to be focused and creative to keep costs down for the attendees.</font><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8000001907349px"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:12.8000001907349px;font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:12.8000001907349px;font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:12.8000001907349px">While Boston cannot be considered a "lowest cost" city, we believe that an attractive and popular city like Boston affords many benefits that will help us keep costs down and make the conference a good value for everyone:</span><br><ul><li style="margin-left:15px;font-size:12.8000001907349px"><font color="#000000">As registration is a <span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">key piece of the "all in" cost, o</span>ur overall goal will be to have conference registration costs be no higher, and if possible less than the previous global FOSS4G events.</font></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><font color="#000000">We believe that Boston will be a very strong draw and that will result in very strong attendance. Strong attendance provides the economies of scale that can help keep costs down. We will be aiming to have an attendance that well exceeds 1,000.</font></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">We believe that the Boston area with our deep technology economy will be able to attract a very strong lineup of sponsors and that heightened sponsorship will also help to defray participant costs. </span><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">We expect to be extremely vigorous and creative in our sponsorship recruitment.</span><br></font></li><span><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">The strong participation of the local academic community - several of whom are <span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">already </span>represented on our LOC - will provide unique, cost saving venue opportunities that will help provide the workshops at a minimum cost.</span><br></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><font color="#000000">The Greater Boston area maintains a diversity of hotel, dining and entertainment options and our downtown airport and public transportation system makes traveling across the region easy and affordable.</font></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><font color="#000000">In addition to hotels, the region supports many</font><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:12.8000001907349px"> alternative lodging options like hostels and Airbnb. </span></li></span></ul><span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:12.8000001907349px">Ultimately, Boston has a very large student population and there are many options aimed at that "limited budget" demographic. In short, we believe there will be great choices for people at all budget levels.</span><br></span><div style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:12.8000001907349px">MT</span><br></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:12.8000001907349px"><br></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:12.8000001907349px">PS: </span><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">Many thanks for all the committee member's efforts in this processes and special thanks to Jeff and Steve for their insight, suggestions and good questions.</span></div><div style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><br></div></div><div style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><font color="#000000">----</font></div></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Aug 14, 2015 at 7:11 AM, Steven Feldman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:shfeldman@gmail.com" target="_blank">shfeldman@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">A question for all 3 cities:<br>
<br>
I am worried about the cost for a delegate to attend including hotels, food, workshops and conference fee. We know from past experiences that this can be an issue for people who are not sponsored by large organisations. We want to make FOSS4G accessible to as many people as possible and a few bursaries aren’t sufficient.<br>
<br>
Can you provide some estimates of all in cost for a delegate on a budget.<br>
<br>
OSGeo Board needs to give a clear steer on ‘surplus objectives’ to the bidding teams before they finalise their budgets in the next round<br>
<br>
To Ottawa:<br>
<br>
I agree with Jeff re co-chairs, for 2013 we had a single chair and 2 very strong vice-chairs who took on large portfolios of responsibility.<br>
<br>
<br>
______<br>
Steven<br>
<br>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Conference_dev mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Conference_dev@lists.osgeo.org">Conference_dev@lists.osgeo.org</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev</a></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:10px"><strong>Michael Terner</strong></span><br style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
<em style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10px">Executive Vice President</span></em><br>
<span style="font-size:9px">617-447-2468 Direct | 617-447-2400 Main</span><br>
<span style="font-size:9px"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Applied Geographics, Inc.</span><br>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">24 School Street, Suite 500<br>Boston, MA 02108</span><br>
<a href="http://www.AppGeo.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:#009933">www.AppGeo.com</span></a><br>
<strong> </strong> </span></div>
</div></div>
<br>
<span style="color:rgb(128,128,128);font-family:'Courier New';font-size:10px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">This e-mail message and any attachments may contain confidential or legally privileged information. If you are not an intended recipient or otherwise authorized to receive this message, you should not use, copy, distribute, disclose or take any action based on the information contained in this e-mail or any attachments. If you have received this message and material in error, please advise the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete this message. Thank you on behalf of Applied Geographics, Inc. (AppGeo).</span>