Re: Venue visit ApacheCon EU Sinsheim Notes

[Ross Gardler <rg...@opendirective.com>]

Nick,

Thanks for summarizing all the various peoples reports in this one mail.

Can I suggest that it is long past time for separating out these
issues and tasking appropriate volunteers for driving things forwards.
We need a planning time. We need regular calls to make sure things are
not being dropped.

I guess what I'm saying is we need a plan (it's great that there is
now information on which we can build this plan - thank you all)

Ross

On 31 July 2012 00:31, Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org> wrote:
> Hi All
>
> As people are hopefully aware, several of us visited the ApacheCon Europe
> venue at the end of last week, and had a bit of a planning meeting after.
> This email is an attempt to combine together the notes which were kindly
> typed up by people there. Hopefully it'll largely hang together, despite
> multiple authors, and will make sense and be useful. Here goes....!
>
>
> The venue was visited by Nick, Paul Götz (SAP and ASF, ASF id pgoetz),
> Elizabeth Garcia (Lucid Imagination) and Rainer Jung. Paul is our main
> contact into SAP concerning the sponsorship. He took lots photos, some of
> which are already available. The day started at about 9am, and finished
> about 7pm. Was more epic than originally planned... But productive!
>
>
> 1) The Arena
> ============
>
> We got paper floor plans showing some variations of chairs etc. We
> (Paul) will receive those plans in electronic form, and has rough versions
> of them available in the mean time. Paul will also get some picture material
> from them we can use to get a better sense of how the venue looks when setup
> for a conference. but which we should not circulate publicly because of
> copyright.
>
> There is a German explanation at
>
> http://www.achtzehn99.de/wirsol-rhein-neckar-arena/
>
> and a German brochure ate
>
> http://www.achtzehn99.de/assets/downloads/PDF/lowRZPDFBroschreRNA1899.pdf
>
>
> a) Parking
>
> Since it is a soccer stadium there is lots of (free) parking directly
> attached to the venue.
>
> There are 4 floors:
>
> b) Ground Floor
>
> On the ground floor there is a big open space directly behind the doors.
> The site has furniture to establish a registration and a wardrobe in
> that area. The furniture consists of about 8 cabinets with rolls to move
> them around. They have the right height so you can stand behind them and
> give out stuff to attendees.
>
> c) First Floor
>
> The first floor has the biggest "rooms". It is a symmetric design.
> There's a so called "Business Club" (an area with a bar, tables and
> chairs for about 50 people) in the middle between two open stairs and
> the elevators. To the right and the left are two spaces which can be
> used for separate talks. Each of those fits about 200 people without
> tables (only chairs, much fewer with tables). The layout would be about
> 20 chairs times 10 lines.
>
> There are no real walls between these spaces and the Business Club.
> Partially the spaces are separated from the rest by movable glass walls.
> The people there tell us. that there would be no acoustics problem in
> having concurrent talks in the two spaces.
>
> The keynote would happen in one of them with sound and projection being
> transmitted to the second one.
>
> For the conference we would need a bigger projection screen than what is
> installed. For this they have a small setup (one big projection screen)
> and a big setup (two screens, presentation plus e.g. speaker or video).
> The small setup is covered by the quotes we already received (see
> below), the bigger setup is more expensive.
>
> The floor is very bright and there are curtains to dim it slightly for
> projections.
>
> d) Second Floor
>
> Again it is a symmetric design. The floor is a bit smaller than the
> First Floor. In the middle is the so called "Piano Bar" a lounge style
> area for about 30 people to sit. To the right and left are areas for
> about 186 people each (chairs but no tables, otherwise fewer).
>
> Again the areas to the right and left can be used for talks.
>
> e) Third Floor
>
> That floor is primarily meant for catering. There are chairs and tables
> and they can serve meals there.
>
> There is no ceiling between the talk areas on the second floor and the
> third floor (you can directly look down).
>
> f) Other Rooms
>
> Press Room: to the right of the ground floor is a separate room called
> the press room. The room accommodates about 70 people without tables
> (just chairs) and probably about 40 with tables (unconfirmed). See Page
> 7 in the PDF.
>
> Rhein Neckar Lounge: then there is on the second floor the Rhein Neckar
> Lounge. It is a completely separated room to the right of the floor,
> maybe about 30 meters away. The room has a very slight angle. In the one
> part it can fit 30 people very nicely, if you add the other part you
> could fit 50 people. See pictures Pages 12-13 in the PDF.
>
> SAP Lounge: and there is the SAP Lounge, which is usually used as a back
> office.
>
> Small rooms: Finally there are lots of smaller rooms for about 12
> people. We could book some of those in addition to the basic package.
>
> g) Photos and Floor Plans
>
> Photos from Paul have been uploaded to
> http://people.apache.org/~pgoetz/aceu2012/ , both as individual files and a
> 250mb zip bundle. The floor plans are due soon, in the mean time the
> printouts we received in person have been scanned and put online.
>
> In the lobby, there's the fan shop to the left (no pictures), and the press
> room to the right of the entrance hall (see pictures 0xx).
> Level 1 and Level 2 are the main event areas (see the areas marked yellow in
> the Floorplan.pdf, pictures 1xx and 2xx).
> Level 3 is smaller and mostly used for meetings / discussions (see pictures
> 3xx).
> On Level 2, there is the "SAP Loge" (where usually the IT and Orga Team is
> located) and - not shown on the floor plan - the "SAP Lounge", an additional
> room for conferences (see pictures 4xx).
>
> Paul has tried to mark the view points for the various pictures on the last
> three pages of the PDF.
> Orientation of the floor plan: Top = East, Right = North, Bottom = West,
> Left = South.
>
> On Level 1, there are two large areas (left/right), which can be separated
> by movable walls. Each of these sections has a capacity for about 200 to 300
> persons, depending on how the seating will be arranged. Other events had a
> setup with about 250 persons/seats on the right area (as key note area),
> using the left area for catering. The area in the middle is for chill out,
> meet & greet, for smaller groups.
> Level 2 has basically the same layout, with about 180 seats capacity per
> area.
> Level 3 could be used for about 70 persons per area, but as you might see
> from the pictures, this level is mainly used for meeting areas and for
> catering. For other events, it has been mostly used for the evening events.
> The press room has a capacity for about 80 persons, the SAP Lounge for about
> 50 persons.
>
> Nick's assumption was something between 300 and 500 participants per day,
> with 4 or 5 concurrent tracks.
> So we could have registration in the lobby, one track in the press room, the
> largest track + key notes in Level 1 to the right, another track + key note
> video in Level 1 to the left, one track on Level 2, and (depending estimated
> number of participants) the fifth track either in the SAP Lounge or on Level
> 3.
> That would leave pretty much space for meeting in the different lounges and
> catering areas.
>
> h) What we do / don't get of the venue
>
> As the Rhein-Neckar-Arena (RNA) Sinsheim is the football stadium of
> "Hoffenheim 1899", parking space is more than we need.
>
> We will not have access to the entire stadium, only to the main building,
> the "Business Club", which is "Entry West" on the plans above.
>
> 2) Various Aspects
> ==================
>
> a) Capacity
>
> Catering floor and keynote possibilities limit the site to about 450
> attendees, maybe 500. Between the individual track rooms we have more
> capacity, the limits are catering on the 3rd floor and keynotes.
>
> b) Accessibility
>
> There are Elevators connecting the central parts of the floors.
> Everything we visited had no steps (as far as I remember).
>
> c) Smokers
>
> Smoker have access to balconies inside the stadium.
>
> d) Power
>
> The common setup of having tables and power supplied during the talks
> will not work. Usually there's not enough space for tables, and if it
> were, there are not enough floor tanks.
>
> We think about creating charging areas were we provide a few dozens of
> plugs. Details e.g. maximum current they can provide (= number of plugs)
> need to be checked with the relevant people. This will affect the number of
> charging points we can offer.
>
> e) Network
>
> There Wireless everywhere, but details about access points etc. still
> need to be checked. Paul remembered they have an outside bandwidth of
> about 20 MBit/s.
>
> Wired connectivity could be provided in some special places, eg for speakers
> and for the the chill-out/meetup spaces in the middle of the floors.
>
> f) Sound
>
> They provide Microphones, amplification etc.
>
> g) Audio Recording
>
> Plugging in our recorders would be possible. Details need to be checked.
>
> h) Video Recording
>
> They could provide the service but it is expected to be very expensive.
> They seemed not to be to happy about the option of bringing in some
> external partner for this. Since they didn't see a problem doing it by
> ourselves, there might have been a misunderstanding about external
> partners using the Arena's equipment. Need to clarify.
>
> i) Evening Hours
>
> For Evening Events we would at least need to pay for a security person
> near the entrance. It didn't sound like a big problem nor did it sound
> expensive. Having evening events e.g. until 10 p.m. would then be no
> problem, so they don't kick us out early.
>
> j) Non obvious staff
>
> They recommend to put some staff at the stairs to guide people.
>
> k) Signage
>
> They have electronic displays and could also provide about 10-15 pin
> boards (they want to check the numbers).
>
> l) Insurance
>
> We will get the so called AGB (Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen = basic
> contract rules). We hope we can find out from that what kind of
> insurance is covered.
>
> 3) Duration of the Conference
> =============================
>
> The options depend a bit on the soccer schedule. There is set to be a match
> in the stadium either the Sunday before (4th November) or the Friday after
> (9th November), it should become clear in a few weeks which it will be. The
> local club is set to play against Schalke. Depending on that there could be
> an option
> of doing the setup on Sunday and starting the conference on Monday. The
> more likely option is being able to run a hackathon on Monday starting
> not to early (like 11 a.m.), e.g. in the press room, and opening the
> registration also on Monday e.g. at 2 p.m. and starting with the
> conference on Tuesday.
>
> We need to decide whether we want to have a 3 day plus Hackathon or 4
> day plus Hackathon conference (or another option) and whether we think
> Friday should just be for tear down or a real conference day. Adding a 4th
> day of talks is likely to bump the price up a lot.
>
> 4) Prices
> =========
> All costs will be in Euros. Registration and Sponsorship will want to be
> collected in Euros too.
>
> CAUTION: all prizes are given in Euros. During the last 4 months the
> Euro was declining from 1.32 USD to 1.21 USD.
>
> b) Committer Reception
>
> The venue people recommended to ask in the nearby museum (one can walk
> by foot):
>
> http://www.technik-museum.de/en
>
> http://pdf.technik-museum.de/events-museum-sinsheim-english.pdf
>
> We went there, but the responsible person didn't have time
> spontaneously. I do have a telephone number and someone is going to give me
> a call on Monday, so that I can report the basic options and conditions.
> Based on that we can hopefully work out what the option is, and how much
> it'll cost, then we can approach potential sponsors.
>
> We kept this item separate because traditionally we found a sponsor who
> finances it.
>
> 5) Hotels
> =========
>
> There are only very few options in Sinsheim itself. Only four hotels
> have more than 10 rooms:
>
> The biggest Hotel, which is also not very far from the Arena and the
> museum, has about 110 rooms and 218 beds. Of these currently about 90
> rooms are still available for the conference week. Web site:
> http://www.hotel-sinsheim.de/
>
> Feedback from Elizabeth (who stayed there) was that it was very nice, and
> also has some rooms which could be used for trainings / small events
> before/after.
>
> Hotel Bär has about 55 rooms and about 80 beds. It is a walk of about 20
> minutes to the Arena.
> http://www.hotel-baer.de/
>
> Hotel Prinzen has about 17 rooms and 25 beds.
> http://www.sinsheim-hotel-prinzen.de/
>
> All other Hotels in Sinsheim are smaller than 10 rooms. There are quite a
> number of guesthouses, b&bs etc in Sinsheim. The next village over, Dühren,
> has a couple of hotels in the 50-75 bed range, but it's a bit far to walk.
>
>
> b) Options for accommodating everyone
>
> It's not going to be possible for everyone to stay in Sinsheim, as we're
> planning for a conference of up to 450 people, but there are only about
> 250-300 beds in Sinsheim across the hotels + guest houses.
>
> People would have to commute to any of the proposed cities. Public transport
> is available. Train e.g. from Heidelberg to Sinsheim is 36 minutes non-stop
> every hour. From Karlsruhe is about 1.5 hours 1-2 train changes, 3 times an
> hour, Mannheim 1 hour 3 minutes, 1 change, once per hour, Heilbronn about 40
> minutes, 1 change, once per hour. So it seems Heidelberg would be the best
> option concerning optimization of commute time. Heidelberg is a touristic
> and university town so in principal should have enough capacity. We have to
> check for other concurrent conferences though. Evening trains to Heidelberg
> are available at 8:51, 9:51 and 11:15, one that takes a bit longer even runs
> at 11:59 (p.m.).
>
> And: some people will have a car and they have more options. Like booking
> one of the small places in the surroundings of Sinsheim.
>
> Finally: if we go for students with reduced tickets, then many of those will
> likely come from places in a distance less than an hour driving and will
> stay at home for the nights or belong to the car category.
>
> I'd say the worst thing about the hotel situation is, that there's no easy
> gathering for everyone for some local bar time in the evening.
>
> 6) Sinsheim
> ===========
> The town seems very nice, with several different restaurants and bars, lots
> of cafes etc. There's a pedestrianised bit between the station and
> Hauptsrasse. Most of the restaurants / cafes / bars are either on the
> pedestrianised part or along Hauptstrasse. We're not going to fit the whole
> conference into any of them, but groups of 20-30 people looking to do their
> own thing in the evening ought to be just fine.
>
> Some people seem to think that Sinsheim is just a football stadium and 3
> houses next to a motorway junction. We're going to need to convince them of
> what it's really like!
>
> The town centre is a 20-25 minute walk from the arena. There are footpaths
> the whole way. Walk wasn't too bad, but it wasn't the 10-15 minutes
> Elizabeth thought...! 20-25 seems a good estimate though.
>
> There are two railway stations in Sinsheim. The main one in town has more
> trains stopping, including some fast ones, but is 20-25 mins walk. The other
> is nearer the venue, perhaps 10-15 mins walk (we didn't try), but only local
> trains.
>
> Tourist Information have a brochure of local hotels / guest houses / etc,
> which we have the printed version of. Same info looks to be available on
> their website, need to link to that from the venue details page, along with
> info on the town, hotels etc.
>
>
> 7) Some Calculations
> ====================
> 3 different calculations were done, two online and one on paper, to check
> that the numbers added up and that everything was covered. Amazingly, they
> all came out with the same answers! A single version has been uploaded to
> Google docs for ConCom review.
>
> We produced some numbers for the likely breakdown of attendees at different
> ticket sale levels, 250 / 350 / 450 people. We worked on the basis that at
> 250 people, we'll have a cheaper lunch, and probably only 4 tracks. If we
> get 450 attendees, e.g. sell out, we would go for the higher end food and
> run 5 tracks. This largely gives the same answers for the profit/loss -
> extra people have extra costs, but a little bit left towards more food. The
> likely breakdown was ad-hoc, based on experience and gut feel. It was *not*
> based on numbers from previous ApacheCons, as they were felt to be too
> different.
>
>
> 8) Various Aspects
> ==================
>
> Some aspects have only been shortly discussed.
>
> a) Track Sponsors
>
> We talked about Sally's proposed track sponsorship model and it was
> integrated in some of the calculation sheets. There was a question of
> what value the track sponsor gets apart from logo visibility ans whether
> a sponsor should be able to buy all sponsor slots for a track
> (exclusivity, first come first serve).
>
> There was an expectation, that the track sponsor slots for Big data
> could be sold out, the ones for Lucene/Solr nearly and in addition maybe
> another 4 track day slots. This is not based on known expressions of
> interest, just a gut feeling yet.
>
> b) Marketing
>
> - in Germany many IT people watch the Heise Newsletter. There are
> several contacts to heise and we would expect to be able to have at
> least two messages in the Newsletter. An early one and a reminder one
> before the conference. What we would need is a text suggestion.
>
> - there are lots of Java User Group. We don't know yet whether there is
> a common newsletter or similar.
>
> - there are a couple of universities around Sinsheim. Mannheim,
> Heidelberg, Karlsruhe and Kaiserslautern. Some of them have lots of
> computer science students.
>
> - current track descriptions and names work fine internally, but need work
> before we can start selling tickets against them. Elizabeth is going to work
> with the Lucene community to put together something of the required detail /
> level. Will circulate that to the other track chairs, and ask them for
> something similar for them. Need to do this soon.
>
> c) Apache Office
>
> There might be additional funds which can be used around the conference
> for Office specific stuff.
>
> d) Hotel Situation
>
> We need to provide information on the Wiki. Possible towns are
>
> - Heidelberg
> - Mannheim
> - Karlsruhe
> - Heilbronn
> - Bruchsal
>
> The differences are public transportation (duration, frequency), size of
> town (Bruchsal is the smallest, Heilbronn still pretty small etc.),
> Hotel options etc.
>
> e) Hotel Rooms for TAC
>
> Nick and me visited the Hotels Klostermühle, Prinzen and Bär.
> Klostermühle didn't look very friendly, is the smallest of those and
> there was no one there to show rooms or give any information. Didn't
> look promising.
>
> Prinzen looked OK. The guy I'm talked to was a bit complicated. Bär looked
> nice, but was a little bit more expensive.
>
> We have rough quotes for expected TAC numbers and dates. If we want to cover
> speakers too, we'll need to up those. All hotels visited were in Sinsheim,
> but there are also hotels in the next village (would need a bus), or loads
> in Heidelberg (train). Another email thread for this.



-- 
Ross Gardler (@rgardler)
Programme Leader (Open Development)
OpenDirective http://opendirective.com

Re: Venue visit ApacheCon EU Sinsheim Notes

[Lewis John Mcgibbney <le...@gmail.com>]

Hi Nick,

On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 2:07 PM, Lewis John Mcgibbney
<le...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Nick
>
> On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 7:08 PM, Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org> wrote:

> Certainly I am able to do this today. Do you have a link to other such
> announcements so I can get a feel for scope and content? Thank you
>

A quick update, I've filed a a 1st draft for the [ANN] at this link

http://wiki.apache.org/concom-planning/ACEU12CFPAnnouncement#Announcement_for_Technical_and_Financial_Assistance

I've also forwarded it to travel-assistance@ list

Thanks, it would eb great if you could get back to me regarding the
other parts I mentioned.

All the best
Lewis

Re: Venue visit ApacheCon EU Sinsheim Notes

[Lewis John Mcgibbney <le...@gmail.com>]

Hi Nick

On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 7:08 PM, Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org> wrote:
>
> Currently, the only one outstanding is the TAC announcement. Are you able to
> help draft that? If so, please send it through to the travel-assistance list
> for a quick review then it'll go out.

Certainly I am able to do this today. Do you have a link to other such
announcements so I can get a feel for scope and content? Thank you

> You can see the track chairs details here:
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgZqERZgbUeSdF9xcFdpNkp2UWNLUThxX3NYc1pZWnc#gid=0
>
> NoSQL is currently short a 2nd, and the Encore half day track needs someone
> too if it can do. The combination of Big Data and NoSQL is quite possibly
> going to be multiple sessions and/or multiple days, so we could maybe also
> use some extra volunteers on that as it'll be more work than others.

I see the spreadsheet is immutable. Please put me down for NoSQL 2nd
chair. Also can you also please add Apache Gora to either Big Data or
NoSQL. It's a bit of a tough one here as Gora covers technologies and
subjects common to both tracks. If I am able to obtain write karma
then I can make these changes myself. Then of course put me down for
Encore session as well. I have no problems with this also.

>
> We're also after someone to help on the sponsor liason front, if that's
> something you have experience with / interest in working on?

I need to be honest here and say that I'm in no mans land w.r.t this.
Taking on a formal role and not knowing what I'm doing is probably not
the best thing for me.

>
> Great, thanks! We will certainly have a number of areas on the ground that
> need help. For now, the main focus is on the pre-conference tasks that need
> help

No hassle at all. Apologies for stepping in later on that I had
originally planned. If you can answer the above then I'll get to work
ASAP.

Thanks
Lewis

Re: Venue visit ApacheCon EU Sinsheim Notes

[Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org>]

On Sat, 4 Aug 2012, Lewis John Mcgibbney wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 4:56 PM, Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org> wrote:
>> On Fri, 3 Aug 2012, Ross Gardler wrote:
>> My requests for help with announcements have largely fallen on deaf ears :(
>
> How many announcements have to be done? What is the format? Where can I 
> begin? Are there more members required to join the Apache events PMC... 
> maybe a recruitment boost is required here?

Currently, the only one outstanding is the TAC announcement. Are you able 
to help draft that? If so, please send it through to the travel-assistance 
list for a quick review then it'll go out.

(There have been others needed, requests for help were sent here, but 
these have eventually been written by either myself or Sally)

> What positions do we still need covered? I would like to help out here
> but don't know which positions are still vacant? Either big data or
> NoSQL chair would be my preference if this position was available.

You can see the track chairs details here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgZqERZgbUeSdF9xcFdpNkp2UWNLUThxX3NYc1pZWnc#gid=0

NoSQL is currently short a 2nd, and the Encore half day track needs 
someone too if it can do. The combination of Big Data and NoSQL is quite 
possibly going to be multiple sessions and/or multiple days, so we could 
maybe also use some extra volunteers on that as it'll be more work than 
others.

We're also after someone to help on the sponsor liason front, if that's 
something you have experience with / interest in working on?

> W.r.t previous TAC roles e.g. recording, gathering presentations. doing 
> time on Apache stand, etc. I will also be bouncing around for all of 
> these when the conference comes around but any position I am able to 
> participate in pre-conference please let me know.

Great, thanks! We will certainly have a number of areas on the ground that 
need help. For now, the main focus is on the pre-conference tasks that 
need help

Nick

Re: Venue visit ApacheCon EU Sinsheim Notes

[Lewis John Mcgibbney <le...@gmail.com>]

Hi Nick,

Building on the positives. Some of this stuff I can/would like to help
with are below

On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 4:56 PM, Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Aug 2012, Ross Gardler wrote:

>
> My requests for help with announcements have largely fallen on deaf ears :(

How many announcements have to be done? What is the format? Where can
I begin? Are there more members required to join the Apache events
PMC... maybe a recruitment boost is required here?

>
> Who is able to take on a significant role with ApacheCon Europe, who hasn't
> already signed up for a role such as track chair? And what sort of role
> might interest you?

What positions do we still need covered? I would like to help out here
but don't know which positions are still vacant? Either big data or
NoSQL chair would be my preference if this position was available.
W.r.t previous TAC roles e.g. recording, gathering presentations.
doing time on Apache stand, etc. I will also be bouncing around for
all of these when the conference comes around but any position I am
able to participate in pre-conference please let me know.

Thanks
Lewis

Re: Venue visit ApacheCon EU Sinsheim Notes

[Lewis John Mcgibbney <le...@gmail.com>]

Hi,

On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 10:36 PM, Ross Gardler
<rg...@opendirective.com> wrote:
> I get the feeling there are quite a few volunteers willing to
> help, is just that the tasks are a little lost in big reports (which is a
> huge step up from no info - thanks to everyone working hard on this)

+1 for me has unfortunately been the case.

Lewis

Re: Venue visit ApacheCon EU Sinsheim Notes

[Ross Gardler <rg...@opendirective.com>]

Nick,

If I may suggest the need is for a planning team who, collectively agree to
make this event a success. In the past regular calls to keep people
informed, coupled with clear task descriptions in those calls have worked
quite well. I get the feeling there are quite a few volunteers willing to
help, is just that the tasks are a little lost in big reports (which is a
huge step up from no info - thanks to everyone working hard on this)

As for the ComDev track description, note I am *not* the chair for that
track. I will ensure it gets done though, thanks for flagging.

Ross

>From a mobile device - forgive errors and terseness
On Aug 4, 2012 4:56 PM, "Nick Burch" <ni...@apache.org> wrote:

> On Fri, 3 Aug 2012, Ross Gardler wrote:
>
>> Can I suggest that it is long past time for separating out these issues
>> and tasking appropriate volunteers for driving things forwards. We need a
>> planning time. We need regular calls to make sure things are not being
>> dropped.
>>
>
> Do we have any volunteers who'd be on these calls though?
>
> We've had some luck with getting volunteers to sign up as track chairs,
> though we've had quite a few emails from people surprised that their
> favourite area hasn't magically happened due to a lack of volunteers. So,
> it hasn't been as promising as we'd hoped. Quite a few of the "likely
> suspects" have agreed to help with this.
>
> We've had excellent luck with getting people to help with investigating
> hotels, site visits etc, and generally working to supply local knowledge.
>
> My requests for help with announcements have largely fallen on deaf ears :(
>
> My request for help with sponsorship have gone no-where :(
>
> A lot of other requests to help have gone no-where. Not meaning to pick on
> you, but I notice that you've still not supplied a description for your
> track, and you're not the only one :/
>
> Quite a few people have explicitly said they won't be able to help out
>
>
>
> Maybe we should turn this around:
>
> Who is able to take on a significant role with ApacheCon Europe, who
> hasn't already signed up for a role such as track chair? And what sort of
> role might interest you?
>
> Thanks
> Nick
>

Re: Venue visit ApacheCon EU Sinsheim Notes

[Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org>]

On Fri, 3 Aug 2012, Ross Gardler wrote:
> Can I suggest that it is long past time for separating out these issues 
> and tasking appropriate volunteers for driving things forwards. We need 
> a planning time. We need regular calls to make sure things are not being 
> dropped.

Do we have any volunteers who'd be on these calls though?

We've had some luck with getting volunteers to sign up as track chairs, 
though we've had quite a few emails from people surprised that their 
favourite area hasn't magically happened due to a lack of volunteers. So, 
it hasn't been as promising as we'd hoped. Quite a few of the "likely 
suspects" have agreed to help with this.

We've had excellent luck with getting people to help with investigating 
hotels, site visits etc, and generally working to supply local knowledge.

My requests for help with announcements have largely fallen on deaf ears 
:(

My request for help with sponsorship have gone no-where :(

A lot of other requests to help have gone no-where. Not meaning to pick on 
you, but I notice that you've still not supplied a description for your 
track, and you're not the only one :/

Quite a few people have explicitly said they won't be able to help out



Maybe we should turn this around:

Who is able to take on a significant role with ApacheCon Europe, who 
hasn't already signed up for a role such as track chair? And what sort of 
role might interest you?

Thanks
Nick