Hi everyone,

Happy New Year! I’m excited about all the amazing events planned for 2025,
especially the upcoming Iceberg Summit.

As some of you may know, I’ve been actively involved in organizing meetups
in both Seattle and the SF/Bay Area. I’ve also supported others in planning
and hosting meetups in various regions.

Based on these experiences, I’d like to propose adding a dedicated section
to the Iceberg Community Guidelines
<https://iceberg.apache.org/community/#community-guidelines> that focuses
on meetups and events. With the rapid growth of Iceberg Community Meetups
worldwide, I believe it’s important to establish these guidelines to:

   -

   Uphold the Apache and Apache Iceberg trademarks while ensuring meetups
   align with the values of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF).
   -

   Provide clear guidance on the expectations for organizers, speakers, and
   participants.
   -

   Support new and existing meetup organizers in hosting successful events.


Context and Background

Since last year, there has been growing interest in hosting local events
centered on Apache Iceberg. The first Seattle meetup was launched in May
2024 at Stripe’s Seattle office to celebrate and discuss the 2024 Iceberg
Summit. Since then, the Seattle meetups have become a regular occurrence,
hosted at various company offices, with the next one scheduled for February.

In the SF Bay Area, we heard from several people eager to kick off similar
events. We shared tips on organizing, hosting, managing calls for
proposals, and selecting speakers. The SF meetup series has been a
tremendous success, with the most recent event attracting over 200 signups
and 100+ attendees. It’s now a recurring series, with the next meetup
already reaching over 300 signups.

Toward the end of 2024 and into early 2025, similar meetups began popping
up in cities like NYC, Singapore, Japan, and Bengaluru. Plans are underway
for even more events across Europe, additional U.S. cities, and other
regions.
Proposed Guidelines

Uphold the Apache and Apache Iceberg trademarks

Meetups must respect ASF policies regarding trademarks. For example, naming
should follow the format: “Apache Iceberg Community Meetup @ {Place}” to
reflect their affiliation with the Iceberg community.

For the Seattle and SF/Bay Area meetups, the ASF has granted us permission
to use the “Apache Iceberg” trademark for branding and the YouTube channel (
@IcebergMeetup <https://www.youtube.com/@IcebergMeetup>). To streamline the
process, we’ll work with the ASF to extend permissions to “Apache Iceberg
Community Meetup” events in other locations.

Other events focused on “Apache Iceberg”, but not related to the “Apache
Iceberg Community” can and should separately request permission from the
ASF.

Guidance on the expectations for organizers, speakers, and participants

Events are driven by organizers who are volunteers from the community. All
attendees (organizers, speakers, participants) are expected to be
respectful, open, and come with the best interests of the community in mind.

Sponsors and speakers are welcome but must align with community-first
principles, as outlined in the ASF Code of Conduct
<https://www.apache.org/foundation/policies/conduct>. Talks should avoid
being focused on marketing and instead contribute technical, educational,
or practical insights. In the past, we’ve provided constructive feedback on
talk proposals that lean too heavily towards promotions to ensure content
remains valuable to attendees.

Support new and existing meetup organizers in hosting successful events

We want to create a simple, step-by-step guide for anyone interested in
starting an Iceberg meetup in their region. We have created a playbook
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y87k-8nCMczzORIcsePDu6CWTTO0h9qI67W_go8BmPA/edit?tab=t.0>
to help streamline the process for new meetups. This includes advice on
suggested format, information on hosting, speaker selection, event
promotion and more. The goal is to make it easier for community members to
establish local meetups and grow the Iceberg community globally.

We’ll update the playbook to reflect on learnings from hosting the Seattle
and SF/Bay Area events.
Call to Action

I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this proposal. If you’re
interested in starting a local event, please post on the dev list or reach
out to me directly.

Best,

Kevin Liu

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