[Board] [FOSS4G-2019 RFP] Re: f2f meeting follow up

Tue Aug 22 06:21:17 PDT 2017

Hi Michael,

First of all, let me take this opportunity to express my
sincere thanks to you and all you team for the successful
conduct of FOSS4G-2017 at Boston. Your immense effort
has earned the deep appreciated from the entire community.

Many thanks for the feedback and look forward to your
active participation in the Conference Committee.

I also take the privilege of nominating you as member
of the Conference Committee.

Regarding the upcoming FOSS4G 2019 RFP, I have also sent some summary
of suggestions [1] that came out as an outcome of discussions on the
board mailing list.

Best

Venka

[1] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2017-August/004425.html

On 8/22/2017 9:47 PM, Michael Terner wrote:
> This is obviously an important thread. The Boston Team will look forward to
> watching it further develop on the Conference Dev list and look forward to
> sharing our experiences and perspectives. Indeed we dealt deeply with
> costs, diversity, workshop equipment, date of conference as well as other
> topics not on this list such as AV and videotaping. I have attached a PDF
> of the briefing that we gave to the Board during the F2F which touches on
> some of our thoughts/findings as we headed into the conference on Monday
> evening. And indeed, we will also develop and share an after-action report
> with our biggest lessons learned *after *now having run the conference.
>
> On the AGM, we agree that scheduling it to not run alongside the regular
> program makes sense. And, in hindsight, I think we would have followed
> Maxi's suggestion and provided a room for the AGM during one of the 90
> minute lunch break that were provided on Weds, or Thurs. It is not
> realistic to have the AGM run as the only session during the program (you
> would give up too many speaking slots as in our case we ran 11 rooms
> concurrently), but there should be time during lunch, or before, or after
> the main sessions on one of the three days.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> MT
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 10:23 PM, Venka <venka.osgeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Mike,
>>
>> Thanks for summarizing the range of listed accommodations
>> at FOSS4G-Conferences.
>>
>> I agree that increasing the range of options available to
>> be a very helpful for conference goers. Perhaps, this
>> could be mentioned in the FOSS4G-2019 RFP.
>>
>> I am also forwarding this mail to the conference committee ML.
>> Changed the subject of the mail.
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Venka
>>
>> On 2017/08/22 10:15, Michael Smith wrote:
>>
>> This is what I came up with:
>>
>> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vuzmHAxO-
>> JInB7WGIm8S5C4ca1ezoaKigDN8
>> vWDu3hs/edit?usp=sharing
>>
>> I also included the range for each conference based on the listed
>> accommodations from the conference sites. Some of the years didn't have a
>> conference hotel or a low cost option. I think this is something that
>> should
>> go into the RFP, that a range needs to be made available for the
>> conference
>> and listed on the web site. Having listed hostels or university dorm
>> accommodations  I think goes a long way. We don't need to be making the
>> conference overall cheaper, we need to increase the range of options
>> available to the conference goers (IMHO).
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> ----
>> Michael Smith
>> OSGeo Foundation Treasurer
>> treasurer at osgeo.org
>>
>>
>> From:  Board <board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>
>> <board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> on behalf of Jody Garnett
>> <jody.garnett at gmail.com> <jody.garnett at gmail.com>
>> Date:  Monday, August 21, 2017 at 7:34 PM
>> To:  Michael Smith <michael.smith at erdc.dren.mil>
>> <michael.smith at erdc.dren.mil>
>> Cc:  "board at lists.osgeo.org" <board at lists.osgeo.org>
>> <board at lists.osgeo.org> <board at lists.osgeo.org>
>> Subject:  Re: [Board] [Non-DoD Source] Re:  f2f meeting follow up
>>
>> No worries Michael, I am not sure exactly when the deadline we were given
>> falls (not sure we took mins for the AGM).
>>
>> --
>> Jody Garnett
>>
>> On 21 August 2017 at 15:06, Smith, Michael ERDC-RDE-CRREL-NH CIV
>> <Michael.Smith at erdc.dren.mil> <Michael.Smith at erdc.dren.mil> wrote:
>>
>> This is on my list to do this week. I was going to get a list of FOSS4G
>> locations and the US State Dept per diem values as an index to costs at
>> each
>> location. I'll convert it all to 2017 dollars. Note that this will be an
>> index, not exact costs.
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> Michael Smith
>> OSGeo Foundation Treasurer
>> treasurer at osgeo.org
>>
>> From: Board <board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>
>> <board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> on behalf of Jody Garnett
>> <jody.garnett at gmail.com> <jody.garnett at gmail.com>
>> Date: Monday, August 21, 2017 at 2:23 PM
>> To: "board at lists.osgeo.org" <board at lists.osgeo.org>
>> <board at lists.osgeo.org> <board at lists.osgeo.org>
>> Subject: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [Board] f2f meeting follow up
>> Resent-From: Michael Smith <michael.smith at usace.army.mil>
>> <michael.smith at usace.army.mil>
>>
>> I saw this thread get into the details of the RFP - for that we have
>> volunteers on the conference committee. My goal as a board member is to
>> work
>> on strategy, as the conference committee knows best about the RFP wording
>> and process.
>>
>> Q: Based on the affordability report, and resulting discussion, did we as
>> the board have any direction to ask the conference committee to steer in?
>>
>> My own feedback:
>>
>> 1) I was pleasantly surprised that the ticket cost of foss4g has not
>> changed
>> significantly over the course of the events (indeed our most expensive
>> event
>> was Sydney and our cheapest Korea).
>>
>> I do not see any guidance to provide here (this was surprising to me).
>>
>> 2) Attendance continues to increase limiting appropriate venues
>>
>> I do not see any guidence to provide here, our community and event is
>> growing. I think once we get around 3000 people we may be forced to settle
>> down to consider a fixed location, but at 1000-2000 we can still move it
>> around.
>>
>> 3) regional events are killing it
>>
>> I do not see any guidence to provide here, our community and events is
>> growing.
>> The hope is this takes some of the strain from the global event, allowing
>> it
>> to focus on outreach and advocacy more.
>>
>> 4) hard for students to attend (also journal, etc...)
>>
>> There was a strong hope that travel grant program could help out a lot
>> here,
>> that would make me sad as this was intended to work towards diversity.
>>
>> While there may be guidance here I am not close enough to the academic
>> world
>> to provide useful direction.
>>
>> 5) diversity
>>    The original intention of the travel grant was to bring diversity
>> awareness
>> to our osgeo events (to apply regional events are asked to set a diversity
>> target which travel grant can help towards). During foss4g I attended a
>> diversity presentation that advocated creating a safe space.
>>
>> Guidance: Trial the use of providing a safe space in the 2018 bid.
>>
>> Similar recommendations online include:
>> - make female speakers a priority (not just in selection, but before hand
>> in
>> promotion, one-on-one mentoring etc...).
>> - providing child care (this helps families attend)
>>
>> Since these haver not been advocated by members of our community I am only
>> comfortable providing guidance on providing a safe space. Perhaps some of
>> these ideas can be tried out at regional conferences first.
>>
>> 6) time of year
>>
>> The events have moved from September/October to August placing it in the
>> way
>> of European holidays. With the bulk of our contributors in Europe this has
>> affected how many of our contributors can attend.
>>
>> Guidance: Request September / October event (to maximize contributors who
>> can attend).
>>
>> I understand next years event has plans to turn this into a holiday for
>> families which is a cunning plan.
>>
>> 7) travel / accommodation
>>
>> I would like to avoid prime tourist season to avoid asking attendees pay
>> high airfair and accommodation costs. We did not have the number in the
>> affordability report to back this up (but Michael Smith was going to look
>> things up).
>>
>> Guidance: Request September / October event (to avoid peak tourist
>> season).
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jody Garnett
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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