Dear DebConf organizers and participants, Please note that I write this message on behalf of the DebConf Chairs.
We have just finished compiling the DebConf organization working group meeting notes, and apologize for any frustration caused by the time this has taken. Please check the wiki for full coverage of what was discussed, what decisions were made and how [1]. We also invite you to improve those notes, since it was not an easy task to keep track of every point discussed. There were 4 working group sessions during DC14, the first two to gather views on how DebConf organization could be improved; the last ones were devoted to reaching a rough consensus about our aims, proposals and commitments on deadlines. Read below the summary of our agreements. What we want: * Clearer decision-making processes * Better-defined subteam membership * Better-defined subteam responsibilities * Subteam membership that continues from year to year * Clearer timeline for the DebConf year * Clearer documentation on agreed processes Accepted proposals: * New roles: leads, shadows, wizards, local liasons * Related tasks grouped into fewer subteams, avoid overlapping roles * All global team members should belong to a subteam * Team leads will be recruited by canvassing past team members * Encourage rotation of team leads before burn-out Agreed timeline: * 1st week of October: agreement on list of subteams and responsibilities (vorlon is working in the first draft) * December 1st: bid proposals submission * 1st week of December (some items might continue into January): - Clear team membership including appointed leads, shadows, local team liaisons and possibly wizards - Agreement on default timeline of DebConf year - Push documentation of subteam processes * January 31st 2015: bid decision for DebConf16 We agreed that the chairs would take on the administrative task of facilitating the teams' composition, so I'll explain in a bit more detail how we are going to proceed. As soon as we have agreed on a list of subteams, we are going to publish a call for help, inviting people for a long-term commitment to a specific team. We are also going to send individual invitations for people who have already helped in specific tasks in previous years and are no longer involved with DebConf organization. When the base groups are formed, the lead and shadow positions will emerge by answers to these questions: "Who would make good leaders for those teams?" and "If you see yourself as a team leader, who would be good alongside you?". Our intention is that this process will facilitate appointments to roles, and avoid the initial appointments simply being chosen by us or people being only self-appointed. By allowing people to answer the questions in private email, we want to create a safe space for sincere and well-deserved nominations. Due to the urgency of fundraising activities for DC15, this process will in fact start before we expected (today). With the team membership clear (and documented), it will be easier to arrange meetings where the most interested people will be able to attend and to make decisions that won't be questioned later. We are happy to hear your comments on this process and we count on you to make it a great success. At the end we all want the same thing: long life to DebConf, and a long and happy life to DebConf organizers ;-) Thank you for reading so far and have a nice weekend! Moray, Tincho, Tassia. [1] https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebconfOrganizationWorkingGroup _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
