Sprints/Promo/2011/Planning

The 2011 Promo Team sprint is from 6-8 May 2011 in Southampton. We are fortunate to be sponsored by the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton as hosting partner for this sprint.

This page tracks organisation, tasks to be done at the sprint and provides information for attendees.

Attendance

Confirmed Attendees

Your accommodation is being booked. If you have not already done so, book your travel now.

Name	Travel costs		Arrive day/time	Depart day/time	Room booking				Share room?	Special Food Reqs	Room is booked for you
	Estimated	Actual			Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
Stuart Jarvis	0	0	Always here	Always here	-	-	-	-	-	-	N/A
Justin Kirby	US$900		Friday morning/afternoon	Monday morning	-	Y	Y	Y	-		In progress
Pau Garcia i Quiles	200 - 250 EUR		Friday morning (Gatwick)	Sunday afternoon (Gatwick)	-	Y	Y	-	OK		In progress
Damien Tardy-Panis	~150€		Friday morning/afternoon	Sunday afternoon	-	Y	Y	-	OK		In progress
Agustín Benito Bethencourt	100 - 150 €	200.87 € + L37.90	Thursday May 5th 20:30 AGP-LGW	Monday May 9th 13:30 LGW-MAD	Y	Y	Y	Y	OK		In progress
Claudia Rauch	150 EUR				Y	Y	Y	-	-		In progress
Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen	50 EUR				-	Y	Y	Y	OK		In progress

Unconfirmed Attendees

You may need to arrange your own accommodation. Contact Stuart Jarvis to check.

Name	Travel costs		Arrive day/time	Depart day/time	Room booking				Share room?	Special Food Reqs	Room is booked for you
	Estimated	Actual			Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
Marc Deop	150 Eur				-	Y	Y	-	OK		NO

Remote Attendees

The following people are unable to attend in person, but may be able to participate via IRC, instant messaging, Skype etc.

We will use #kde-promo on freenode for online chat during the sprint

Note, this is a public page. If you're not comfortable putting contact info here, please mail Stuart Jarvis instead.

Name	Timezone (relative UTC)	IRC Nick	GChat Nick	Skype Name	Other IM
Oriol Mirosa	-	-	-	-	-
Aaron Seigo	-	aseigo	-	-	-
Carl Symons	-	-	-	-	-
Thomas Thym	-	-	-	-	-
Javier Llorente	-	-	-	-	-

Travel

Getting to UK

Airports:

• Southampton (IATA:SOU) with links to Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Paris-CDG and a few others
• London Heathrow (LHR) links to Southampton via the London Underground and then a 1:20 train journey
• London Gatwick (LGW) links to Southampton via trains (a few direct, most with one change)
• Bournemouth (BOH) airport has links to Spain, Portugal and Italy and is about 1 hour from Southampton by train.

Port:

• Portsmouth ferry port provides access to various ports in northern France and is then a short train journey from Southampton

International Trains:

• You could take the Eurostar through the channel tunnel to London and then the London Underground and train to Southampton. However, this is unlikely to be the cheapest option.

Travel in UK

There are a few options. Trains are normally your best bet.

Southampton from Heathrow Airport

Total journey time to Southampton station is about 2 hours, maybe a bit more if you have to wait for the train at Waterloo.

You can also check buses to see if there is one at a good time for you (direct and a bit cheaper).

Get to London

From Heathrow you can take either: Heathrow Express to Paddington, then you need a zone 1 single on the underground to Waterloo (take the Bakerloo line) OR Take 'Underground'/'Tube' (metro) to Piccadilly Circus (Piccadilly Line), then Bakerloo line to Waterloo - you need a zones 1-6 single

Tube map to make some sense of that: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/standard-tube-map.pdf Heathrow is in square 1E; Paddington 3C; Piccadilly Circus and Waterloo both in 5D

The tube is massively cheaper and recommended.

Get from London to Southampton

Train from London Waterloo to Southampton Airport Parkway (or Southampton Central, both are on the same bus route, but Airport Parkway probably makes more sense if you come to/from the university directly). The trains go about every 30 minutes, normally the destination is 'Weymouth' on the departure boards in the station, but they also list the stops.

Tickets

Heathrow express is £32 return, you can book online. You can also buy on the day from a machine at the airport station. The Underground part for that will cost you £4 each way.

Or if you go the whole way on the tube, it will cost £5 each way and take about 10 minutes longer. Take the tube.

Tube tickets you just buy from machines or office at the stations. Tube and Heathrow Express will be signposted in the airport (or ask).

For the train to Southampton, I normally use thetrainline.com - normally you can select to pick up the tickets from a machine in the station (it should be cheaper to buy in advance). When you enter your journey times on thetrainline.com you want 'Offpeak return' if available. Outward ticket is valid all day after 10am on the day you specify and the return is valid on any train during the following month, after 10am. If you travel is before 10am either way you'll need an 'anytime return' which will be about double the cost.

From a quick check, offpeak is £37.20 return; peak £68.80

Southampton from Gatwick

This is easy. Just visit the Trainline and get a ticket from Gatwick to Southampton Central.

When you enter your journey times on thetrainline.com you want 'Offpeak return' if available. Outward ticket is valid all day after 10am on the day you specify and the return is valid on any train during the following month, after 10am. If you travel is before 10am either way you'll need an 'anytime return' which will be about double the cost. Off peak seems to be around £44.80 at present. Singles are also available and may be cheaper, but these are tied to specific trains, so if your flight gets delayed you are basically screwed.

Typically, you will need to change trains once, occasionally two times, on the journey. Occasionally there are direct trains.

Initial organisation chart

This is no longer relevant - relevant info migrated above.

Name	Travel costs		Arrive day/time	Depart day/time	Hotel nights required					Share room?	Special Food Reqs	Confirm room booking?
	Estimated	Actual			Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon
Stuart Jarvis	0	0	Always here	Always here	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Oriol Mirosa	US$900	Not attending			-	Y	Y	Y	-	OK		N
Justin Kirby	US$900		Friday morning/afternoon	Monday morning	-	Y	Y	Y	-	-		Y
Pau Garcia i Quiles	200 - 250 EUR		Friday morning (Gatwick)	Sunday afternoon (Gatwick)	-	Y	Y	-	-	OK		Y
Aaron Seigo	~300 EUR	Not attending			-	Y	Y	Y	-	OK		N
Carl Symons	US$1000	Not attending	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	N
Marc Deop(Damnshock)	150€				-	Y	Y	-	-	OK
Damien Tardy-Panis	~150€		Friday morning/afternoon	Sunday afternoon	-	Y	Y	-	-	OK		Y
Thomas Thym	~300 EUR	Not attending			-	-	-	-	-	-		N
Javier Llorente	~200 EUR	Not attending			-	-	-	-	-	-		N
Agustín Benito Bethencourt	100 - 150 €	200.87 € + L37.90	Thursday May 5th 20:30 AGP-LGW	Monday May 9th 13:30 LGW-MAD	Y	Y	Y	Y	-	OK		Y
Claudia Rauch	150 EUR				Y	Y	Y	-	-	-		Y
Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen	50 EUR				-	Y	Y	Y	-	OK		Y

Southampton Information

Venue

The University of Southampton department of Engineering and Computer Science can offer us rooms, WiFi access and free lunches. They would also to hold a joint event including a presentation to students about KDE, probably on the Friday at some point.

More info on Southampton as a city is on Wikipedia.

Travel in UK:

• The Trainline can help you plan train journeys. The relevant stations are Southampton Central and Southampton Airport Parkway (both are on the main train line to London and bus route to the university)
• LHR and LGW are also accessible by coach (e.g those run by National Express).

Accommodation

Preferred option for group booking:

• Bannister Guest House, near bus route, singles from GBP 33/night/room, twins from GBP 54/room/night (shared bathroom, some ensuites available)

Subject to availability (which is good at the moment) we will book everyone into the above.

Other accommodation:

• Travelodge, the Avenue, on uni bus route. Prices ~ 60 GBP/night/room
• Elizabeth House Hotel, the Avenue, on uni bus route. Singles from GBP 60/room/night, twins from GBP 70/room/nigh
• Highfield House hotel, walking distance to uni. Prices GBP 59/room/night (single and twin)
• Etap, near station, GBP 40/night singles (not sure if group booking possible)

Topics

Please feel free to add here. Sticking your name after the suggestion makes it easier in case we need to clarify what is meant :-)

• Prepare for Desktop Summit (this would be insanely valuable on its own as

very little has happened on the KDE side so far)

• • Update the KDE Press Pack
• Join the Game (Supporting Membership program) needs a big push
• Making the most of the Promo Booklet - we have it, now how can we best use it?
• Create some wiki pages for important repeatable promo tasks
  • Create content explaining to other people in KDE how to access the skills and services of the Promo team
  • Ensure we have an up to date page with boilerplate slides for use at conferences, LUG meetings, etc to introduce people to KDE so people don't have to reinvent the wheel every time
  • A page for all things related to conferences that people might need, like having all source files for flyers, stickers, install media, etc in one spot
  • Organize pages for major initiatives like ISMP ("Join the game") and the upcoming corporate sponsorship campaign
  • General cleanup
  • Clear messages to KDE presenters/users about live CD/DVD options
  • Youtube ads, new stories, etc. linked and useful as a resource
  • Shop/Wiki: KDE gear for sale, SVG images for printing, booklet for printing
  • Potential improvements to live CD/DVDs, as suggested by Thomas Thym [1]
  • Survey - discussed on the promo list previously, also on Etherpad: survey users about perceptions, usage, survey developers about where to add promo value? (sprint a good time to get survey(s) ready)
  • Make it easy for would be grass roots promoters to get the resources they need (Stuart Jarvis)
• (pgquiles) Get better exposure and more involvement for Windows/Mac efforts. For both users and developers. Non-Linux platforms badly need more developers, and Windows and Mac could bring many new developers in.
• (pgquiles) "Sell" (advertise, not $$$) kdesupport, kdelibs, kdepimlibs and calligralibs (former kofficelibs) to third-parties as just one more module to Qt. Important: commercial support. See my mail to the kde-promo list for more info.
• Team building....in other words: meet each other in person, drink beers

(or whatever you prefer), hang out

• Pushing KDE EDU (esp. at schools)
• Discuss the functioning of the promo/marketing teams and how we can improve in the future (tasks, responsibilities, communication, decisionmaking)
• KDE.News - editor meeting and discussion of staffing