[OSGeo-Conf] Comments on Philadelphia 2017 proposal

[Paul Ramsey]

On Sun, Nov 8, 2015 at 7:10 PM, Robert Cheetham <cheetham at azavea.com> wrote:
>  * Many past FOSS4G events that relied on volunteers resulted in burned out
> volunteers - we didn't want to rely on a volunteer team to run the event.

I'd like to address one, as it's a bit of a received truth, because it
has a kernel of truth in it.

Organizing these events does seem to reliably burn out the chairs, and
a handful of the most involved committee members. On the flip side,
they also seem to activate previous marginally interested community
members to get more involved and grow the community more (one result
of FOSS4G 2007 was a spurt of other OSGeo activity, including a
semi-regular meet-up, which is waxed and waned over the years).

So these things don't necessarily leave salted fields and blighted
landscapes in their wake, as the Ottawa bid hopefully reinforces.

P.