Auckland Venue
Nevyn
Today I went and saw Tom at Orion Cafe (Enfield St, Auckland). We've
been trying to find a venue with low costs and hopefully a sponsor and
which has some form of Internet access (it's often better being able
to ask if someone comes to you with an issue rather than trying to
rely solely on memory).
So at Orion Cafe, we talked to the owner of Orion Health, who's
offered us the venue for free (free of the $200 booking fee). There
are some costs though (these might not be applicable given that we're
not sure if this comes with the offer)
* We would have to underwrite the cost of food (given that it's a
consumable, this seems fair).
* We would need to pay the $25 / staff member / hour.
In other words, we would need to do a pass around to try and get some
funds to be able to make this work.
Coffee and Drinks isn't a probably in anyway whatsoever.
So what we need to do is figure out how much space we need (and figure
out a rough sort of flooring plan), what we're displaying, who's
displaying it or running it etc. How many people are we likely to get
through (which effects how many cafe staff members we need)?
We also need to figure out promotion channels - some of which can
probably be done on a national level (anyone got an in with the news
programs or papers?) whereas for local things we need to figure out
poster designs and where to put 'em. We also need a way to cover
printing costs.
I know in Auckland there's potentially 3 things happening throughout
the weekend - A gaming night at ASHS, a more general sort of event at,
hopefully, Orion Cafe and University of Auckland LUG have been talking
about doing something at the University - which probably makes a
poster for Auckland quite different from just about everywhere else.
In other words, I think we've got the initial stuff covered in
Auckland, now we need to start figuring out what we want this even to
be and who is going to help with these efforts.
Regards,
Nevyn.
Jaco van der Merwe
Thanks a lot!
Have you got an idea of how many staff-members we're talking about?
Being a Cafe, I assume they sell food & drink. Can we mark up the cost
of say, the coffee, by 10% to cover the costs & ask visitors to buy a
cup (we'll give them a distro in exchange)?
Another point: do we know who's taking charge? (I'd rather not make
assumptions)
Details that need attention:
* http://cgi.softwarefreedomday.org/register.html ("Note that from 1
August 2010, teams that register are not guaranteed to receive supplies.
Supplies will be sent subject to availability.") <--- !!!
* http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/StartGuide
* http://softwarefreedomday.org.nz/ &
http://softwarefreedomday.org.nz/Auckland
* https://shipit.ubuntu.com/
- J
Robin Paulson
> Today I went and saw Tom at Orion Cafe (Enfield St, Auckland). We've
good work looking for a venue, but...
that's a ways off any even slightly busy pedestrian routes. i assume
we're not aiming for anyone coming in on the spur of the moment after
they see a sign?
that said, i'm not sure what to suggest as an alternative so it may be
our best option
Jaco van der Merwe
> good work looking for a venue, but...
>
Especially considering the total budget available ($0 again).
If I'm not mistaken, there's a train station & bus stop nearby, & enough
parking. (& coffee & food & beer & connectivity)
...but.... who's taking charge?
If we're hoping to get any goodies to do this thing with, we need to
complete the registration ASAP.
Tabitha Roder
I tried some tertiary institutes and some schools with no luck for a Saturday event.
I tried all the community halls in Auckland and got no where. Really no where. Sad really.
I did get a yes from Windsor (where olpc test every Saturday) but they require $250 booking fee and minimum spend is $1500 and we have not got that kind of money.
So Tom suggested Orion Healths cafe. He works at Orion health so knows people. It has loads of parking. The food is good and the people are nice. Orion are offering a tiny bit of sponsorship which we really appreciate.
Unless we start advertising NOW we are not going to get much word out. We cannot gauge numbers until we get the word out so we don't know how many staff to tell them to have on.
Tom and I are in Samoa volunteering for two weeks (from tomorrow) so are very thankful that Nevyn has helped with meeting the Orion people. If he can hold the fort until we return we can then get back to full support.
What to do while we are away:
- if you are coming write it on the list - http://groups.google.com/group/sfd-nz/web/auckland-2010
- if you are exhibiting or want to talk write it on the list - http://groups.google.com/group/sfd-nz/web/auckland-2010
- if you can help in anyway write it on the list - http://groups.google.com/group/sfd-nz/web/auckland-2010
- if you can think of a sponsor, or want to sponsor write it on the list
- if you have advertising ideas (we will be on the http://softwarefreedomday.org.nz/ site) write it on the list - I have requested access to edit the page they made for us - http://softwarefreedomday.org.nz/Auckland
A definitive decision is what is needed now to make sure this event happens.
Tabitha
Nevyn
The lack of walk in traffic is quite likely to be offset by the fact
that it's within Orion house - Orion Health - New Zealand's largest
software exporter. What this means is that they employ a lot of geeks
and so, although it may be a bit more preaching to the converted
(hopefully not), we are looking at a few more people.
The marking up the price thing probably isn't such a bad approach
though I don't think we're going to get too much traction there. We've
been asked for those costs in advance.
In terms of how many staff do we need: it depends on how many people
we're expecting. If we are talking about the same numbers as last
year, 1 person is probably more than enough. If we're talking about
Wellington's levels (400 or so) we're probably talking about 4 staff
members...
We can have a maximum of 130 people in there at any one time (fire
regulations) so .... 2 people max?
In terms of food, given that food is their main business, I don't
think we could get away with not having food. That's a biggie for
'em... but I'd suggest we try and keep things as simple as humanly
possible. Things like Paninis, toasted samwiches - things that can be
made before hand thus not requiring a chef.
Given that our female (Tabitha) is away for 2 weeks ;) , I guess I'm
the next closest thing to take charge.
I'll get the registration filled in tonight.
Regards,
Nevyn.
Tabitha Roder
I'll get the registration filled in tonight.
Tabitha
Auckland.
I would like to start advertising immediately. I have access to the
softwarefreedomday.org.nz website so will put details up now.
Mark - can you give me suitable content about Friday at ASHS please?
AuckUni LUG - will you attend Saturday at Orion Cafe? If you are doing
something else can you give me suitable content for the website
please? Otherwise we welcome you to get involved with Saturday at
Orion Cafe.
Is everyone happy with a Saturday start time of 10am and finish time
of 4pm? There is space for presentations and having a few set in
advance will be useful for advertising, but lets also leave room for
unconference style topics to be offered up on the day.
There is not much on the website yet for other cities either, but
still we need to move quickly now. I would like to email out to
schools, user groups, and get info on websites, blogs, and newspapers
now if we can. Wellington request that people"register" for the event
and I would suggest we do this also so we can indicate numbers to the
cafe.
If you are available to meet to discuss this, please come to Windsor
on Saturday. I am there from 11am to 2pm. Suggestions for suitable
other times are welcome and if you want to meet at Orion Cafe we can
arrange to meet there in a lunch break one week day.
I will be asking around for sponsors to donate CDs, stickers, etc.
Thanks Nevyn for getting the ball rolling with contacting SFD and
registering our event.
Tabitha
021 482229
nathan parker
We are wondering if Warrington's details can be included on the SFD site.
http://wikieducator.org/Warrington_School/Educational_projects#Software_Freedom_Day_-_ICT
We have a core group of people with some great ideas brewing and are keen to get others involved too.
http://wikieducator.org/Rekrapenator/BBOSI_people#Collaborative_approach
We aim to begin action around the week of SFD on the BBOSI project - it should tie in nicely.
Busy time!
Cheers
N
Warpington
Otago
NZ
034822605
0272148294
Rekrapenator
Nevyn
> Thanks Nevyn for getting the ball rolling with contacting SFD and
> registering our event.
That's cool. Sorry I've dropped the ball a bit - some family matters
have come up with means that time is going to be really limited for
the next month or so.
Anyway, the few bits that I have done:
Contacted Graham Lauder - he's an Open Office migration expert, a SuSe
advocate (I've asked him to also grab us some openSuse cds for the
day). He lives closer to Hamilton then Auckland but is willing to
drive up for a presentation. On what exactly I'm not entirely sure.
Contacted Tim Carr. Tim Carr has a business called Mind Kits which has
been working with Vik to build a RepRap kit. i.e. all the bits you
need to build a RepRap like the stopper motors and that sort of stuff.
He's declined
Contacted Vik about doing a RepRap presentation. He's been horribly
quiet so no response from him.
I was thinking that I should go down to an Arduino meeting and talk to
those guys about doing a sort of show and tell sort of thing - kind of
a "this is an arduino and is completely open and this is the sort of
thing you can do with it" kind of thing. I'm not going to be able to
do this.
I have received 100 Ubuntu cds.
Have asked University of Auckland LUG if they might perhaps want to
run an installfest under a UALUG banner at SFD - no real response as
yet but they're running a week long installfest within the next couple
of weeks so hopefully they're be a bit more amendable after that.
The bits we really need to do
the venue isn't completely free - there are still bits we need to pay
for such as staff and food. I reckon a whip around if we can manage it
soon.
Is there a way to get sponsors (Other than Orion who are doing away
with some of the costs associated with using Orion Cafe)?
Advertising Advertising Advertising. The website is probably going to
be a big draw for those who are looking for this sort of thing but
flyers at the tech and university probably isn't such a bad thing
either as well as anywhere else you can think of (last year I spent a
day walking around schools in the area asking them to chuck up a
poster on their staff notice boards - no returns on that).
Figure out exactly what we want to do i.e. are we going to fill the
place with noise? (frets of fire?). What sort of presentations are we
going to have and do we need to put out a call for presenters? etc.
Still need to get in contact with the Red Hat guy, Roland I think his
name was. Any other distributions we should be getting some
representation for?
I'd really like us to have some sort of disk full of FLOSS for
Windows. It's not ideal as most of these applications require the user
to go and check for updates themselves or have something pop up
delaying them from getting to work by asking the user to update the
software but it's a good intro into the world of FLOSS at least.
Regards,
Nevyn.