Summits, Conferences and Meetups workgroup - 2019-12-05

Regarding the Hotel - I briefly discussed this in today's Board meeting.

I feel that whatever choice we offer is going to have downsides to one person or the other.

I'd personally like to avoid spending a lot of effort in finding a replacement

But I think it's best to facilitate as many of the XSF members that's possible.

In Board, a suggestion was raised that the XSF could sponsor a percentage of the hotel costs.

That doesn't mean we can't also search for another hotel, of course

But maybe one of both is sufficient to properly facilitate the lion share of members that will be joining us.

thoughts?

Guus: what are this years costs?

one sec, table doesn't copy/paste properly

https://igniterealtime.org:443/httpfileupload/b7a238a8-6207-432f-8e8e-65341e2f9489/image.png

I see. Thanks

The extreme unbalance between weekend rates and weekday rates makes this pretty hard to compare. I think on the weekend it might actually be a tad cheaper or at least the same price as the thon in down town for example. So people not staying for fosdem will get a different value out of that.

That's the effect from using a hotel in the business district. That dies down in the weekend.

Last years weekend was 75, iirc

Anyway the overall difference is probably not significant enough to make a big deal out of it. So I'd say hotel is fine for this year

Ok, I'll wait for others to pitch in on that.

What about the idea to offer some kind of sponsoring to hotel costs?

Until we have a proper overview of the finances / cash flow of the xsf I don't have an opinion on that matter

that's for the board to decide, I guess

as a member, I think it would be nice that some of our costs are covered

Throwing out an arbitrary figure, I'm quite confident the XSF could cover 20% of the cost for the nights in that table for 15 members (amounts to ~€1500/$1600)

In reality I think we are usually far fewer than 15 members, and many people don't stay the full time

Obviously offering a discount may change that a little

Thinking about attendence at the last summit, maybe we aren't always far fewer than 15 though

A quick scan of the member list and my memory of who attended last year suggests 18 or so

Should we sponsor only people staying at the hotel that we arrange, or should extend that to all XSF members that spend time in a hotel in Brussels, during the summit/fosdem?

I think it would be sensible to limit it to just one hotel

eg: Daniel already booked something else.

so it looks to me like Thon EU is fine for this year given our (Guus') time/capacity maybe a change of hotel is to consider, maybe in Oct/Nov next year if the board can cover some costs, that would do, from my point of view

That, or we set a flat cap

I think we should review the finances and have a deeper discussion at the next board meeting

I don't see that anyone is going to object except on the grounds of "does the XSF have enough money?" - which can't really be answered

Peter apologised and said he won't be able to complete the financial reports until after the end of this year, but I'm sure he'd be able to provide us with a rough snapshot of how things currently stand

He regularly does

i feel like our money can be better spend than paying 20% of an (imho) overpriced hotel

to me 4 years ago 20% off still would have allowed me to stay at the thon

still would, or still would not?

would not

i think we should either (but maybe starting next year) have an official budget alternative OR sponsor certain indivduals to 100%

I don't think the XSF can afford to pay the full accomodation for all members (at the extreme end), but of all the things we could spend money on, I don't see that allowing more people to attend is a bad thing to spend money on

The price of the hotel is unfortunate, but finding a good && affordable hotel in a reasonable location in Brussels isn't easy

If anything it puts pressure on us to find a better one for next year (I think it is likely too late for this year)

yeah it's too late for this year

I would like to hear if 20% is enough to enable people to attend who wouldn't otherwise

i mean the thing about finding an official budget hotel is that it also makes sponsoring _some_ people 100% easier

My feeling was that it would bring Thon to a level acceptable to more people, but if that's not the case then perhaps a fixed amount per member for any hotel would be better

Having (mostly) everyone in the same hotel helps with various logistics as well

20% brings down Thon EU to what i'll be paying this year - which is still a 4* hotel with breakfast in walking distance to the Thon EU - which is a lot more than I would have been able to afford 4 years ago