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 booked for you. If you have not already done so, book your travel now.
Name | Travel costs | Arrive day/time | Depart day/time | Room booking | 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 11:45am | Monday 8am | - | Y | Y | Y | YES | ||
Pau Garcia i Quiles | 200 - 250 EUR | Friday morning (Gatwick) | Sunday afternoon (Gatwick) | - | Y | Y | - | YES | ||
Damien Tardy-Panis | ~150€ | 250€ | Friday ~12H30 in SOU | Sunday ~12H00 from SOU | - | Y | Y | - | YES | |
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 | YES | |
Claudia Rauch | 150 EUR | Y | Y | Y | - | YES | ||||
Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen | 50 EUR | - | Y | Y | Y | YES | ||||
Lukas Dzikaras | Y | Y | Y | Y | YES |
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 | - | - | - | - | - |
Vivek Prakash | UTC -4 (EDT) | vivek_ | - | - | - |
Marc Deop | - | - | - | - | - |
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:
- 'Underground'/'Tube' (metro) to Piccadilly Circus (Piccadilly Line),
then Bakerloo line to Waterloo - you need a zones 1-6 single
- Heathrow Express to Paddington, then you need a zone 1 single on the
underground to Waterloo (take the Bakerloo line)
Tube map (PDF) to make some sense of that. 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 thetrainline.com 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.
Travel in Southampton
The university operates a decent bus service, uni-link. The bus you want depends on your entry point:
- Southampton Central Station: Take the U1A to both the hotel and the university
- Southampton Airport Parkway: Take the U1C to both the hotel and the university
The stops you need are:
- University: Highfield Interchange
- Hotel: Bannister Road/Archers Road on the Avenue
Bus network map (PDF) shows the routes. The best one is the U1. Buses (and bus stops) are labelled U1C for buses on this route going in the direction of the city centre and U1A for buses going in the direction of the airport.
Accommodation from the bus stops
Here is a map showing the accommodation (Bannister Guest House) location relative to buses.
Venue location on University Campus
We are hosted by ECS. The University of Southampton Campus Map shows the ECS building (number 53) to the top left and also the uni-link interchange where you should get off the bus.
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.
Accommodation
Bannister Guest House. If you are in the 'confirmed' group above then your accommodation has been booked for you for the nights indicated.
Banister Guest House 11 Brighton Road on Banister Road Southampton SO15 2JJ
Accommodation is in single ensuite rooms and breakfast is included.
Free WiFi is provided.
We need to make arrangements for people arriving after 2100, which may be for those of us arriving earlier to pick up your keys.
Those arriving on Friday should probably come straight to the university, then we can all head as a group to the accommodation.
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
- Commercial contents in KDE website: the idea is to make a proposal to KDE about why, how and when we should include contents related with companies and vendors that ship, collaborate in the development, support, etc KDE
- Strategy disscussion
- Action Plan
- Roadmap
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 |