First Meeting on this Tuesday

[Anthony Cole]

Hi All,

We're going to have a meetup to discuss WordCamp this coming Tuesday at 5 PM at the University of Melbourne. If there's not enough space, we're going to move to a local cafe.

We're meeting at Rm 123 (1st floor), John Medley East, University of Melbourne (Parkville campus) - It's directly opposite Gate 10 (Grattan Street).

Please drop me an email with your name and mobile number if you'd like to come so I can send a message out if we end up having to move and can't find you. I'm at 0434122200.

Many thanks to Sarah Stokely for allowing us to use her office space. I'm looking forward to seeing you all there!

Cheers,
Anthony

[Adam Purcell]

Hi,

Any opportunity to Skype in or similar for those of us not located in Melbourne?

Adam

[Anthony Cole]

Yeah,

I'm trying to figure out what the best way to do this is. Anyone have any tips on managing something like this? I've got a feeling we'll get ~5 or 6 people calling in, and at least 5 people meeting up. I just don't want to have everyone all trying to get their point across and this turning into question time.

-ac

[Adam Purcell]

Ummm

What if there was an agenda set in a google doc and we all add our thoughts before the meeting - then the meeting sticks to what is already in the agenda?

[Sarah Stokely]

Best not expect much from the Melb Uni wireless. It's often sluggish to load web pages, so I don't hold much hope for a big Skype conference. Boone mentioned Skype when I volunteered my office, thought we just needed meeting space.

Cheers

Sarah

Sent from my iPhone

[Anthony Cole]

I've got a 3G stick we can use :) 

-ac

[Anthony Cole]

Sounds good. I've created an agenda.

The groups site seems to be down/acting wonky, but I'll create a page for this once it's back up.

Get some thoughts going and when it's up comment - would prefer not to flood everyone about content etc.

WordCamp Meeting Agenda

Tuesday, 22 June, 2010 - 5:10 PM start

1. Introduction - introduce ourselves, introduce WordCamp, and introduce rules and regulations surrounding that. Give a little history.

2. Discuss Venues - Pros and Cons

3. Decide on Date - I'm proposing February 20th and 21st, 2011

4. Assign roles - We need people to volunteer and take certain roles. These need to be really clear. 

• Social Media - Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn Groups, etc
• Public Liason: Manage volunteers and speakers and handle registration on the day. Build schedule for WordCamp.
• Sponsorship - Someone well connected here would be great
• Regulation - Make sure we keep to deadlines, that we're doing everything like we said we would. Also, keep time during the events. 
• Maintaining the site - A design refresh would be great. 

5. Talk about core values of WordCamp. What is WordCamp going to emphasise?  How are we going to accomplish what we want to do? 

6. Set ticket prices

7. Discuss alliance with New Zealand - Dan Milward just agreed to tune in.

8. Discuss banking details and decide who should cosign on an account.

-ac

[Brent Shepherd]

It's a great idea to have a local meet-up, but it'll make it difficult for those of us not in Melb to stay up to speed if face-to-face meetings are how the event is organised. A lot can be decided/changed/concocted in a single meeting!

If this is how you want to proceed with organising, I think we have a few options:

1. Detailed minutes passed on to the list after each meeting

2. Skype/video call, if not for contributing, at least for watching to save you having to write up minutes

3. Core group of Melbourne people take the reins and those of us not in Melbourne are allocated tasks which core members are not able to perform. 

Thoughts?

[WP Kick Start- Conorp]

Make sure we follow the latest updates to the WordCamp 'rules' http://central.wordcamp.org/about/

I wont be able to attend Tuesday but would love to tune in by Skype

Conor P
Web Developer
Web: WP Kick Start
Email: con...@wpkickstart.com

[Anthony Cole]

Okay guys,

I'm lightdifference on Skype. Feel free to add me - we'll probably start around 5:10 or so.

-ac

[Charly Leetham]

I too would like to join via Skype, I'll connect with you Anthony, if you wouldn't mind adding me in.

Charly
Skype: charlyjl

[Sarah Stokely]

Hi all,

To keep the meeting to a palatable 1 hour or so, would be great to have someone chairing tomorrow. I'm not keen to do this :) but will if needed.

Looking at the agenda Anthony emailed around, I'd suggest we consider splitting up some of the volunteer roles:

ie we may want a kind of Event Manager/Ops role who'll be overseeing the event on the day (central go to person for rego/venue/networking/ etc kind of issues). This would ideally not be a  'front of house' person  - ie they should be shielded from having to manage volunteers/speakers/attendees so they can ensure the event is running smoothly from behind the scenes.

Speaker/volunteer liaison are quite chunky tasks and could conceivably be broken into two roles. 

Schedule (as in selection of talks/panels) should probably have input from everyone rather than being down to one person? 

I'm also a bit unconvinced about the possibility of getting 300 attendees. Suggest we get attendance figures from the previous Melbourne WordCamp (2007) and Sydney 2008 before getting too attached to that figure. I don't know anyone who was involved in organising the previous Melb wordcamp - was anyone on this list?

Until we have a better idea of the venue we're leaning towards (and associated costs), how much if any sponsorship we'll get from LA & possible attendance figures, it will be pretty difficult to decide on ticket prices tomorrow, I suspect.

Look forward to seeing/meeting folks tomorrow.

Oh, and hi Dan! :)

Cheers,
Sarah

[Anthony Cole]

Hey,

James Farmer did the WordCamp in 2008. He's not allowed to be involved, as he's caused a wee bit of drama in the community and has a bit of non-GPL stuff.  He withdrew support half-way through organising 2008 and caused a bit of drama for me and Sam - and from what I've heard, involvement from him will renig interest from automattic. 

I think 300 might be a little overblown, but judging by interest and how many people use WordPress in AU as compared to two years ago - I think it will be quite a big event. SF is drawing ~900 people. New Zealand has a much smaller web community - and with that, we're capping attendees at 100 people. I think the WordCamp in Sydney had ~120 attendees. 

Microsoft is willing to chip in as a sponsor for any WordCamp, and they have a pretty decent standing in Australia. They gave a large sum of sponsorship to SF, and I don't think that will be an issue. Plus, Supreme Coffee sponsored WordCamp NZ with free coffee for two days and said they'd love to help out with something over here. The LA will definitely help out with insurance - that's what they did last time. 

The schedule should be collaborative, by all means. It's just a bit tricky to compose and time correctly - and that is very collaborative. 

Tickets might have to wait - but I wanted to keep them as low as possible and take just what we need. I don't like expensive tickets. The last WordCamp's tickets were 65 dollars if I remember correctly. I don't want that to happen again, but I feel that tickets should be as low as possible (~30 dollars if we can). So it might be good to set it at a later date, yeah. 

Will put up the meeting agenda soon on a page and send it through - google groups has been raising all hell lately, so i haven't had a chance to get it up.

-ac

[Brent Shepherd]

When you say "not allowed" to be involved regarding James & IncSub, does that mean they are not allowed to attend, present, speak, organise, or all of the above? Their plugins are all now GPL, so what's the latest on their relatoinship with incsub, would they be allowed to sponsor? I have no affiliation, just curious.

Sponsorship will be partially contigent on numbers and numbers are very contigent on ticket price. I'd like to strive to make attendence free. I'm amazed to hear WordCamp Sydney was $65 per ticket. Was there 0 sponsorship? I've organised events with a 3 course dinner, alcohol, live music and a mechanical bull for that ticket price! Ticket price is based predominately on expenses/sponsorship gaps, so it's not a priority for the first meeting, but it would be nice to know we're working towards the same goal (free vs. $30 creates a big difference for how we do things).

[Sarah Stokely]

I'm really sorry to have opened up a can of politics, it was not my intention. I was just keen to find out how many attendees the last Melbourne WordCamp attracted.

I'd like to see as little politics and as much positive participation as possible. So would be good to have some clarity on Brent's questions. 

Unless we have people really gungho about seeking sponsorships (which I am not) then I think it's reasonable to charge people *something*. Even if it's a fairly nominal $20 or $25 so they feel invested enough to turn up on the day even if it's pouring with rain. :) But agree, keeping the ticket price as low as possible is a good goal to have. And reduced rates for students/unwaged. 

I'd also point out that many people in the Aus open source community are fairly cold/negative towards Microsoft. I can't see their sponsorship of WordCamp turning off other sponsors (like LA), but it's something to be considered. 

Cheers!
Sarah

[Sarah Stokely]

Hi all,

I've just been informed that wireless is pretty sketchy in my office on campus, and although I've requested guest wifi, they may only provide 1 login, or they may not provide anything in time at all. Yay Uni bureacracy! :)

Anthony mentioned he has a Telstra wireless stick, and I can bring my 3 one... if you have a laptop and will require wireless, please bring a wireless stick of your own if you can. 

Thanks for bearing with me. :)

Cheers,
Sarah

[Anthony Cole]

Sarah, I don't think you've done anything really. There's no real politics.... just... stupid people.

I thought I read something about something GPL-ish that he'd done a while ago, but to be honest, it's just a done deal. He screwed a few of us over. He has a tag from Automattic, and it wouldn't be good to bring it up at all with them. It's...ergh. 

I'll just relay a story about "free". The first WordCamp was free. 200 People signed up. It was pretty awesome meeting people in person, but as I said, alot of people signed up.

...~100 came.

Matt and Ryan Boren said they were eating leftover brisket for about 2 months after that. The "free" barcamp model doesn't work for us. 

Brent - were you keen to join us on Skype tomorrow? 

-ac

[Brent Shepherd]

Haha I'll put the moral of that anecdote down to over catering rather than something inherently wrong with free. ;-)

I should clarify though, I say "strive for free" because trying to make the event free will force us to work hard at keeping costs down and finding sponsors. Realistically, I think charging a ticket price while providing a free ticket for students/unwaged strikes a good balance between the pros/cons of each option - those who really can't afford it can still attend, but we also get commitment from many attendees.

Yep I'm keen to skype in tomorrow. Anthony, I'll add you later tonight. :)

[Anthony Cole]

I love that idea. As a (former) student myself, I can definitely see a value in having a free pass.

You nailed what I wanted to say on tickets.

Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow night. 

I know this is going to be a long shot, but uh, is anyone else coming to Melbourne Uni tomorrow? So far I've got me and two others (who replied off-list because google groups is being a PITA as usual and won't allow people to be added). It would be nice to get numbers...

-ac

[Dan Milward]

Sarah. Sorry to say this but I think you'd make an amazing Chair!! 

I've seen you work and these things need somebody like yourself to keep focus!! For what its worth you get two thumbs up from me!!

I personally think we should charge $30.00 and provide a student coupon that either gets them in free with Student ID. Or real cheap.

If we don't charge we potentially make it hard to fund. We don't want to go broke. If we didn't charge $35 + for NZ WordCamp, Anthony, Jason K, and myself would still be paying it off. And if that happened none of us would be "as "interested in committing to another one :P

Self supporting all the way!!!

Ciao,

Dan

Sent from my iPhone

[Adam Purcell]

Sorry to join the conversation a little late... I tend to agree charging a ticket price, even nominal is a good idea. For the same reasons everyone has already said!

One model I have seen is a ticket price in exchange for something - eg a t-shirt or a meal voucher. If it is decided that charging a fee might not go down to well, then perhaps some kind of trade off is an option. At least then we get an idea of attendance and can plan well from a catering point of view.

[Charly Leetham]

Hi All,
I'ld like to connect to the call.
If you need a chair, I could do it but I really would prefer to get to know the dynamics first.... knowing some of you by 'reputation' only.

I'd also weigh in on charging something and having a coupon for students with a valid student card.  Unless a sponser picks up the whole tab :-) .

AC - I've connected via Skype, and will be 'hanging' around at 5.10pm.

Charly.

Ask Charly Leetham
A Leetham Trust Project

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[Sarah Stokely]

Thanks for dobbing me in Dan. :P
I'm anticipating this meeting might be a little messy due to not-great wireless access and the often dodgy quality of Skype conferencing... 

but I'll chair if needed. :)

Cheers,
Sarah

On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 6:25 PM, Dan Milward <d...@instinct.co.nz> wrote:

[Brent Shepherd]

Yes indeed, it's going to be a bit chaotic with skyping in etc. We'll need a strong chairperson. :) I'll try to remain a mostly passive observer to avoid clogging the thin Australian pipes haha.

RE: ticket price, sounds like around a $30 ticket price takes consensus. I think Adam's idea of including a shirt for paying attendees is great. Depending on the venue, we will more than likely have excess seating capacity for presentations, so it doesn't really cost much extra to give free access for students to these. It's catering and other per head (including wifi I guess) items where additional attendees means increased expenses, so we'll have to consider what to do with those... but there are many more pertinent issues to discuss tomorrow! :)

[Anthony Cole]

Having a bad vibe about the whole wifi/3G thing.... If worst comes to worse and you don't see me on skype, give me a call and I'll let you know what's up.

We might have to duck into a cafe somewhere or something. Talk to you guys in an hour or so :)

-ac