[FOSS4G-Oceania] Workshop selections update

[John Bryant]

Hey all, I want to provide an update from the workshop selection committee,
which consists of Trisha, me, Martin, Vasiti, Greg, and Jonathan Garber
(Uni Melbourne, lots of practical experience organising workshops).

We're very very close to finalising the selection process, which has been
both arduous and enlightening. Appreciate the input from Cameron & Andrew
here. We have tried to incorporate the principle of asking presenters to
communicate, and will be rolling this out over the next couple of days.
Rather than doing this in a public way, we're directly contacting
presenters in groups where we see some thematic overlap, and encouraging
them to communicate and make their presentations as complementary as
possible. Will also aim to connect accepted & *not* accepted presenters, so
we might be able to facilitate offers of help there.

One outcome of our selection committee discussions that may surprise a bit
is that we decided to expand from 10 to 14 workshop sessions (ie 7 rooms,
morning & afternoon sessions). We realise there is some risk of spreading
too thin, but had to weigh this against the importance of carrying a
program with diverse topics, and honouring the community vote. It wasn't a
decision we arrived at lightly. Even with this expansion, there are
certainly many submissions that are painful to cut... one take away lesson
for me is there's no perfect way to do this. By expanding into 2 extra
rooms, though, we hope that we've reached a good compromise that will make
people happy.

Much more work to be done over the next few days, communicating with
presenters and preparing the registration system and website for publishing
the workshop program on Thursday. Also need to wrap up the notes & work in
such a way that we can make it public and keep it for future reference, and
consolidate some notes on lessons learned.

Huge thanks to the selection committee for their work over the last several
days, Alex for organising the community vote & registration, Cholena for
getting the website ready for publishing, and especially to Trisha who has
done a masterful job of pulling this together efficiently & with
sensitivity. And of course, all the people who submitted the beautiful
workshop proposals we have to work with :)

jb
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