[OSGeo-Conf] My Beijing proposal questions

[Jeff McKenna]

Hello Gao Ang and the Beijing team,

I have a few questions/comments about your full proposal and budget:

- I notice that your full proposal does not contain the list of members 
of your local organizing committee, but the letter of intent does: is 
there any changes to this list of members or is it the same?  If it is 
the same, I would hope that you consider adding a representative from a 
local private company onto your committee (as your committee does not 
contain private sector members, and we hope that the accepted host team 
has a varied local committee)

- Thank you for providing a list of accommodations: I noticed the 5 (or 
more!) star hotels near Olympic park, but I was not aware of the other 
more affordable hotels near there.  I believe most international FOSS4G 
attendees would be looking for the hotels lower than 5 star.

- I don't see the 1 or 2 days of hands-on workshops on your presentation 
blueprint schedule.  Would those be held on Monday and Tuesday before 
the conference?

- I notice that your proposed schedule has the regular presentations 
running over 5 days, from a Wednesday to a Sunday.  I am aware that it 
is common in Asia for events to run on Saturdays and Sundays; but most 
international travelers will likely fly home on that weekend.  What are 
your thoughts on that issue?  Can you explain (for the other OSGeo 
conference committee members that have not yet been to Asia) that it is 
common practice for events to operate on weekends in Asia? (meaning: 
please explain why you chose to run the event for those days of the week)

- I notice that you are not committed to using a local Professional 
Conference Organizing company.  Please note that the amount of work to 
organize an international event like this is staggering.  For that 
reason, since 2007 almost every FOSS4G event has used a professional 
company to help organize.  Like you said, it is not required, but 
without it it puts your (7 or so?) local committee members in a very 
tough spot (they would likely have to work on this fulltime for that 
last month, at least).  I hope you can reconsider this decision.

- I notice that your proposed schedule has the event on "21 Sept 2012 
Tuesday" to "26 Sept 2012 Sunday" but in fact those dates do not match 
the days of the week (21 Sept 2012 is a Friday).  Can you please clarify 
the correct dates that you are proposing for your event?

Thank you.

-jeff