I will keep the file in svn updated. you can read it on the web here: http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/debconf-data/dc7/venues/?rev=0&sc=0
hot cross culture bullet and granate holes in streets and houses Minarets, mosks, women rights, balkans Student dormitory ================= capacity 900 beds 2 medium rooms a 200ppl (packed) 150 ppl restaurant 100 ppl cafe area 19€/day/person 2 or 3 bed rooms light weelchair enabled internet and network installable as we wish small modern hotel accross the street 24 beds 12 rooms mosk, cultural center 280 ppl auditorium 5 * 32ppl lecture rooms 100ppl kitchen, cantina (negotiable?) possibly hacklabs limited opening hours: Mo-Fr 8:00-16:30 (negotiable?) free of charge => 300 fully sponsored people for less then 50000€ questions - other, nearby hotel for other corporate guests? - how reliable is the cultural center? - can we have hacklabs and lunch in the center? - can we NOT have passport checks at the center? - can the cultural center (aka saudi arabia) sponsor flights from other arabic/islamic countries? - will it be actually work out with the internet connections and the network infrastructure? - very nice payment terms (10|90) Hotel Terme =========== capacity 400ppl 4+ different sized meeting rooms for bofs and small talks 1 bigger lecture room for 200+ ppl 33€/person/day high standard, no extra hotel needed rooms with 1 or 2 beds (no 3???) fully wheelchair accessible outside park payment terms like (30-30-40) => 300 fully sponsored ppl for 90k€, which is too much everything in one place tighly integrated questions: - will wired infrastructure be installed by then? - how to restructure the pricing model in order to pay the hotel? Local team 15ppl differnet backgrounds (pupils, students, professionals, men+women) organizing experience heterogenous aparently dedicated sincere, authentic impression motivated by - desire to help bosnia catch on to free software (which adoption was hindered by the war) - desire to further the youth - desire to collect experience for career - help debian Sarajevo ======== Sarajevo is not a very touristic place and still is marked by the war. Everyone we would interact with participated in the war actively or passively and perhaps lost friends or family members. Many house fronts have bullet and some even granade impacts. Still some troups from the EU are in the country. Prices are really low. food and drinks are cheap by "normal" standards. People are friendly and helpfull, and many in Sarajevo seem to speak enough english to communicate. Temperatures are higher then i am used to: 32°C on the first day. One tries to avoid moving too much and stays in the shade. Traveling in the tram with many other people is not very compfortable. But mornings and evenings are very nice and I was very surprised to not be bitten by any mosquitos. Currently the only way from and to the small and quite Airport is by taxi. It is possible that public transport will be available by next year. Cross-Culture ------------- You see lots of minarets and mosks and some churches. Many women wear headcovers, aparenly even if they are not muslim themselfs. The most striking experience was when we were hosted and lead around at the arabic culture center by a lady wearing a full length garment and headcover who spoke excellent english, obviously smart and intelligent and who treated us polite but strangly firm. I, coming from sweden where gender equality is considered self-evident, found myself wondering occasionally about men honking their car´s horn at women and pointing and commenting openly. At the same time the women we met and interacted with (at the LUG) were self-confident and determined. The Student Dormitory ===================== The dormitory is located near the airport and is Y shaped, tall building. It is at least 20 years old (actually it might have been part of the olympic village which was also in that area of town). It is clean but clearly used. When we came it was in full use. The small appartments had two rooms: the one with the beds and other furniture and the bathroom. Eventhough it was a warm day outside the rooms seemed not too hot, even withough air conditioning installed. The bathroom we saw had a sink, a toilet and a shower. There was no shower curtain or basket for the toilet paper (so the latter might not be needed). The two bed appartment was perhaps 10m^2 and plain and simple in design. The three-bed rooms are slighly longer but similarly shaped to make space for the extra bed. The self service restaurant in on the second floor. Our meals would be served here. and cafe were connected by stairs and the cafe could extend the restaurant. The kitchen in the back of it would aparently provide plain fare and appeared clean. There are two rooms that could be used as hacklabs with an area of perhaps 100m^2 each. Additional areas for hacking could be created by extending the cafe with chucked up canvas cover. There are three elevators, one of them wide enough for wheelchairs.While the elevators and ramps would allow wheelchair drivers to move around and use the building freely, the bathroom doors appeared to be too narrow for Otavio's needs. Other wheelchair drivers used the place before but perhaps could be moved more easily. Rooms and public areas would be cleaned regularly (daily?), new bedsheets would be replaced every three days or by demand (?) and towels would we switched every day. Private laundary service would be external and payed by the participants, with pick up service. We were given permission to install our own network infrastructure as we please. Blueprints might be provided. Nearby Hotel ------------ Close to the student dormatory, aproximatly 200m away across the street, there is a small hotel with 24 beds (in 12 rooms). It is very modern and it could be used for people like Otavio or People who think the dormatory would be too plain for them. (We had more corporate participants at earlier debconfs.) An other hotel is 2car-minutes further up the road. (This needs to be investigated further). Arabic Culture Center --------------------- An other 5minute walk from the hotel (slighly under 10min from the dormatory) is the arabic cuture center. It is heavily sponsored by the saudiesand appears well equiped and modern. We had to hand in IDs to access the compound (since it is Saudi-Arabic terretory). Some people at the place were wearing fashion as i only knew it from islamic countries, with full length garments for the women who hosted us and head cover (but visible face) and one men i saw was wearing the short trowsers and beard that are characteristic for some extreme islamic movements (Taliban?). The opening hours of the place are currently 8-16:30 on Mon-Fri. People from the LUG believe it is possible to extend them according to our needs. Usage of the facilities would be free of charge and it might be possible to get (travel) sponsorship for arabic/islamic participants of debconf. Should we be able to use the place no ID checks or limitations on the participants would be imposed. It would be a chellange for both sides, though, to respect the characteristics and limits of the other culture (and to behave well) and muster tolerance, should the limits be violated. Dormatory - Summary ------------------- The dormatory seems to offer all the required features for a debconf. It is plain and simple and does not offer a high level of compfort or luxority. It is clean and fullfills all our needs regarding food, space for hacking and accommodation. The culture center is in my compfortable walking distance (given it is not too hot outside to move, at which point everything becomes uncompfortable). That means it is too far for americans and australians and some people will attend talks in the culture center in blocks as in Helsinki (instead of on demandlike in Brazil). This could be compensated for by having lunch in the center and have additional hacklabs there, too. Internet and local network is not yet installed and would require work and focus by the local team. During the conference the debconf team would have to carry the full load of the conference The culture center requires further negotiation and checking and remains an uncertanty factor. The dormatory is only available when no students are around, which would be hottest time of the year (jun-aug). The excellent pricing and payment terms makes this venue the cheapest and economically most attractive one ever. Hotel Terme =========== Like the Dormatory the hotel is close to the airport. It hosts meetings and other conferences on a regular basis and seems to have an active and up-to-speed marketing manager. She would be our contact person, too. The meeting rooms, conference facilities and equipment would be included in the per head/per day price. It is possible that internet and network infrastructure will be installed by next year. The hotel reception would take over the conference bags, room allocation and check in according to our specifications. She seemed reluctant to give us floor plans or blueplants. The LUG might be consulted for the network and wiring planning and implementation. We asked if they could cope with participants arriving and departing in small chunks over a periode of days and could cope with some paying for themselfs and some being fully sponsors. The answers were not totally consistent, since she seemed to say it was no problems to manage people individually and then later that people should be payed for by us. The reception is open 24h/day. My personal feeling is that she underestimates the challanges and complexities of debconf and carefull and detailed communication with her will be requireto ensure a smooth conference-workflow. The Hotel also offeres laundary service, but also stuff like swimming pools, health services, etc that we dont need. _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
