UbuCon North America 2024 Planning Meetings

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Time: Friday, January 12, 2024 at 5 PM US Central
Participants: Simon Quigley, Ian Weisser, Dan Simmons, Aaron Prisk, Jason Nucciarone, and Erich Eickmeyer

Agenda:

  • Goals and scope
  • Bootstrap an initial planning committee
  • An actual team of people structured from the enthusiasts who have made themselves known so far
    • How big does this team need to be?
  • Indication from Canonical that this is a blessed event - can we ask for this?
  • Make a tentative decision on exact dates (can be carried over)
  • Determine a good time that we can meet regularly
  • Sponsorship - do we need a legal entity? When and how do we get the word out? Who can we reach out to for sponsorship and how do we deal with those requests?

Notes and action items:

  • Aaron to follow up on letter
  • Goals:
    • 2 days, 150 people as a starting expectation - aiming for about the size of SELF
    • Showcase Green Bay
    • Jumpstart/reinvigorate Midwest Local communities
    • Have a larger Linux conference in the Midwest. Current FOSS oriented conferences are focused on the coasts (besides OLF).
    • Bring developers into the midwest.
    • What kind of content do we want? Avoid hard-leaning political talks in either direction that will create tension or toxicity.
      • Community
      • Non-technical
      • Development
  • Write up a Call for Sponsors - Jason ~ 2-3 weeks
    • Current base pricing: 3k per day for Lambeau field.
    • Write up different drafts proposing different sponsorship tiers.
  • Create a legal entity to house the money transparently - Ian and Simon
  • Simon to follow up with Altispeed on hosting needs/NextCloud instance
  • Ian to calendar out events

Next meeting: Thursday, January 18, 2024 at 5 PM US Central

Want to get involved, or just interested in following progress in real time? Join our Matrix channel.

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Thursday, January 18, 2024 at 5 PM US Central
Last meeting notes

Participants: Simon Quigley, Ian Weisser, Jason Nucciarone, Erich Eickmeyer, Dan Simmons, Josh Hertel
Apologies: Aaron Prisk

Agenda:

  • Followup from last meeting:
    • Aaron on the letter
    • Ian on event calendar
    • Simon on NextCloud hosting - discuss domain name
    • Ian and Simon on money/financials organization
  • Should we make our own logo?
  • UbuCon Asia website as a starter template - Altispeed can host if we can decide on a domain name
  • Decide on dates (can be carried over)

Action Items:

  • Aaron on the letter
  • Simon on NextCloud hosting, just make it faster
  • Simon to reach out to OpenCollective
  • Jason on CFS draft, follow up with Aaron
  • Simon to follow up on a website
  • Simon to follow up on venues
  • Erich makes the logo
  • Josh to draft a budget

Notes:

  • The tentative dates are now July 27-28, 2024
  • Resolved to use OpenCollective
  • Our eventual goal is to be on ubucon.org with a big arrow right on Green Bay
  • Let’s get this rolling :slight_smile:

Next meeting: Thursday, January 25, 2024 at 5 PM US Central

Want to get involved, or just interested in following progress in real time? Join our Matrix channel, or you can read our public notes here.

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I wonder if Ubucon organizers would be interested in subdomaining ubucon.org. Eg na.ubucon.org? Otherwise we can also consider that for next year.

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Usage of my own domain name is just a temporary stopgap measure; I’m in full agreement with that as a step forward. :slight_smile:

I think Aaron was working on something similar, we’ll be sure to circle back.

Also, the UbuCon Asia 2024 website starter is impressive and we want to use it. My action item is to fork that and play with it, ideally we’d have a common template for each year that UbuCons can fork.

Thanks!

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Thursday, January 25, 2024 at 5 PM US Central
Last meeting notes

Participants: Simon Quigley, Aaron Prisk, Erich Eickmeyer, Dan Simmons, Ian Weisser, rick.eee.13
Apologies: Jason Nucciarone

Agenda:

  • Followup from last meeting:
    • Aaron on the letter
    • Simon on NextCloud hosting, just make it faster
    • Simon to reach out to OpenCollective
    • Jason on CFS draft, follow up with Aaron
    • Simon to follow up on a website
    • Simon to follow up on venues
    • Erich makes the logo
    • Josh to draft a budget

Action Items:

  • Aaron on the letter
  • Simon on NextCloud hosting, just make it faster
  • Ian to reach out to OpenCollective
  • Jason on CFS draft, follow up with Aaron
  • Aaron to follow up on a website
    • Our eventual goal is to be on ubucon.org with a big arrow right on Green Bay
  • Simon to follow up on venues
  • Erich makes the logo
  • Dan to look at the budget and make tweaks
  • Simon to draft a call for speakers

Notes:

  • The tentative dates are July 27-28, 2024 (standing notes item)
  • Resolved to use OpenCollective (standing notes item)
  • Moving forward on a call for speakers and much of the tentative planning is done

Next meeting: Thursday, February 1, 2024 at 5 PM US Central

Want to get involved, or just interested in following progress in real time? Join our Matrix channel, or you can read our public notes temporarily housed here.

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Thursday, February 1, 2024 at 5 PM US Central

Participants: Aaron Prisk, Erich Eickmeyer, Dan Simmons, Ian Weisser, rick.eee.13, Josh Hertel

Apologies: Simon Quigley

Agenda:

Follow-up from last meeting:

  • Ian confirmed the OpenCollective account for UbuCon North America Committee was officially approved.
  • Aaron confirmed subdomain option for NA UbuCon.
  • Erich showed off current logo concept and design ideas to members.
  • Dan reviewed preliminary budget and didn’t need to make any adjustments.
  • Jason & Aaron reviewed tiers from draft Call for Sponsors.

Other items discussed:

  • General discussion around local universities and tech schools as potential fallback venues for cost savings and student outreach opportunities.

Action Items:

  • Jason & Simon to draft some specific figures (headcount, room count, table count, etc.) to present to potential venues.
  • Josh to explore potential local grant options to help fund event.
  • Ian to explore OpenCollective features now that it’s been confirmed.
  • Erich to keep working on logo concept (Avoid wrath of the Green Back Packers).
  • Aaron to finish up work on website template and share via Github.
  • Jason to generate formal Call for Sponsors PDF.
  • Josh to reach out to potential university sponsors.

Notes:

  • The tentative dates are July 27-28, 2024 (standing notes item)
  • Resolved to use OpenCollective (standing notes item)

Next meeting: Thursday, February 8, 2024 at 5 PM US Central

Want to get involved, or just interested in following progress in real time? Join our Matrix channel, or you can read our public notes temporarily housed here.

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Thursday, February 8, 2024 at 5 PM US Central

Participants: Simon Quigley, Erich Eickmeyer, Ian Weisser, Jason Nucciarone

Apologies: Dan Simmons, Aaron Prisk

Agenda:

  • Followup from last meeting:
    • Draft some specific figures (headcount, room count, table count, etc.) for Simon & Jason to take to venues.
    • Look into grant options, “chamber of commerce” to help fund event.
    • Ian to explore OpenCollective bells and whistles
    • Erich to keep working on logo concept
    • Aaron to finish up work on website template
    • Josh to follow-up with UWGB professor

Action Items:

  • Simon and Jason to meet to draft specific figures
  • Simon to meet with folks at Chamber of Commerce and Discover Green Bay
  • Erich to bring logo for ratification next week
  • Aaron to finish up work on website template
  • Josh to follow-up with UWGB professor

Notes:

  • The tentative dates are July 27-28, 2024 (standing notes item)
  • Resolved to use OpenCollective (standing notes item)

Next meeting: Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 5 PM US Central

Want to get involved, or just interested in following progress in real time? Join our Matrix channel, or you can read our public notes temporarily housed here.

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Meeting participants:

@nuccitheboss, @aaronprisk, @ian-weisser, @eeickmeyer

Meeting Chair:

@ian-weisser

Apologies

@tsimonq2 (he drivin), @kc2bez

Call for Sponsors

  • Happy with the drafted CFS document. Have started circulating it around to potential sponsors around the Green Bay, Wisconsin area. Planning to publish formal call for sponsors sometime next week.

Open Source Collective

Conference Venue

  • Have identified short-list of facilities that we are interested in around the Green Bay area. Going to reach out over the weekend and next week with criteria of what we need from the facility and cost breakdown to rent the facility. Will allot a three week period to collect proposals from facilities. During that time we will also work to secure sponsors.

Merchandise

  • Going to look into getting initial merchandise order together and identify what the cost will be. Ideally targeting a total attendance of 150 people, so will likely order merchandise to meet that total. Merchandise order should be put in 2-3 months before UbuCon North America dates.

Getting Involved

The UbuCon North America Organizing Committee meets every Thursday at 17:00 CST. Our calls are open to the public. Want to get in on the fun? Join our public Matrix room!

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It’s great to see an event like this coming to the Midwest. I look forward to seeing further developments on the planning, good luck!

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