Committee Meeting - 12th January 2016

Ruby Australia Meetings
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Ruby Australia Committee Meeting Minutes

12th of January, 2016 - 8:30pm AEDST

Held via GoToMeeting

Committee Members Present

  • Leonard Garvey (President)
  • Melissa Kaulfuss (Vice-President)
  • Jo Cranford (Treasurer)
  • Rebecca Skinner (Secretary)
  • Amanda Neumann
  • Rob Jacoby
  • Lauren Hennessy
  • Angus Scown

1. Welcome New Members

  • Introduce & welcome new members to the committee
    • Four have left, four have entered. We’re now a more diverse bunch than ever before, from all parts of the country.

2. Setup and access for new members

  • Github access
    • Amanda has created a new Committee team in Github which we can add/remove people from when they change.
  • Roles, responsibilities and handover
    • Matt and Jo have had a proper handover, as have Sebastian and Len.
    • Rebecca will annoy Mikel with any questions about her role.
  • Add bio to the RubyAU website
    • TODO: Lauren still to complete her bio and update on website ASAP.
  • Document these things for a useful checklist for next time!
    • During the next month, any interesting issues/things of note/importance/etc. that new committee members come across will be documented in the committee repo for future generations.

3. Meeting schedule for next 6 months

  • Schedule in meetings and add to a calendar invite
    • 2nd or 3rd Tuesday of each month will be suitable, but slightly earlier in the evening.
    • 1st and 4th Tuesdays taken by Adelaide.rb and BrisRuby.
    • TODO: Rebecca to make final call on which dates, and set up webinars for six months going forward.
      • Half of the committee will be shuffled in six months so a new schedule can be set then.
    • May need to slightly adjust the time of the webinars at the end of daylight savings.

4. Place to securely share and rotate accounts

  • What are our requirements? What tools are available? Who is going to set this up and collate accounts?
    • 1Password has by far the best interface for users.
    • Other alternatives mentioned but not as nice.
    • 1Password now supports teams!
      • TODO: Len to set up a new team account with 9 members (1 admin and 8 committee members).

5. Agenda and actions for the Ruby AU Committee for the next 6 months

  • Discuss what we think are the priorities and set some key actions.
  • Revisit the existing working groups and update with new members and vision.
    • Event Knowledge working group
      • Have been busy collating information in the guides repo.
      • Canberra RailsCamp team still a bit burnt out from the recent event, plus Christmas got in the way, so they will add to it shortly.
      • Pat Allan had passed on information about running a RubyConf, but it will need to be edited before being added to the public repo.
      • After RubyConf Rob, Trish and Jo will write down their experiences for next year’s organizers.
      • Lauren to use the information collected so far in running the next RailsCamp, and find any gaps.
      • Lauren would like to be part of this working group!
    • Community Building working group
      • Priority #1 is revamping the website, to offer more information and resources to the community about who we are and what we can do.
      • The Trello board discussing the new website is pretty full and work will start on it soon.
      • The new site will be hooked up to a proper database, instead of recording user registrations in a Google Form.
      • Rebecca would like to be part of this working group!
    • Ruby for Businesses working group
      • Was spearheaded by Mikel and John, both of whom are no longer in the committee.
      • The Ruby developers survey was done - final results yet to be released. Will make it a regular thing.
      • Len will chat with John to see what was happening with that working group, and a plan of attack can be made after that.
      • Angus would like to be part of this working group!

6. Sponsorship packages

  • I’d like to reopen the action to create an annual sponsorship package. It would have made organising RubyConf and Rails Girls Melb much easier, and I’m sure the same is true for Rails Camps.
    • At the moment each event organizer is responsible for organizing their own sponsorships, which is the hardest part and can be very stressful.
    • If a sponsorship system was implemented for Ruby AU, then the money could be distributed and the organizers would have less work.
    • Most events are sponsored by local companies - how to make that work on a national scale?
    • How to properly credit all sponsors? There may be 30 or 40 small sponsors and it’s not like their names can all be read out at the start of every meetup.
    • If aiming to get sponsorship from big companies, the time to strike is soon because budgeting for next financial year starts in Feb.
    • There was an initial draft of a sponsorship prospectus done some time ago, that Sebastian or Matt may have a copy of.
      • TODO: Find it because Jo wants to see it!
    • Some previous invoices from last year still outstanding which will help the financial situation. People to chase up within their respective companies.
    • Organizers can still get their own local sponsors as well.
    • Jo has made a slack channel for further discussion, and will provide us with data on previous sponsorships and has outlined her initial thoughts on potential problems we will need to solve.
      • Aiming to have this going in time for RailsCamp in June but Lauren won’t count on it just in case.

7. Upcoming events

  • I want to make sure robjacoby has everything he needs to make the conference a success.
    • Event may run at a loss due to smaller ticket sales than expected.
    • Venue was chosen partly being able to extend to up to 1000 people, but only 350ish tickets sold.
    • Distance is a big factor - harder to travel to.
    • Still some concession tickets unsold - price may be a factor because travel would be expensive.
    • Still some speaker tickets yet to be purchased.
    • Everything under control, just smaller things like t-shirts left to do now.
  • RailsCamp Adelaide, is that a thing? What do we need to do to help?
    • It is very much a thing!
    • Lauren and Keith have roped in several local volunteers and are narrowing down timeframes and locations.
    • Jo to be added to the Slack channel discussing the event so she can be aware of the financials.
  • I’d like to be thinking about location for RubyConf 2017 and RailsCamp summer 2016
    • RubyConf depends on a team willing to organize it.
    • Consensus is that Sydney or Melbourne would be best - less people willing to travel to places like the Gold Coast.
      • Anecdotes on past RubyConfs.
      • First Melbourne one was jam-packed, people sitting on floor, etc.
      • Sydney one less packed, some empty seats in a larger two-room venue.
      • Second Melbourne event also restricted by size of venue but still sold out and even oversold tickets.
    • Phil Arndt mentioned possibility of a RubyConf AUNZ?
    • RailsCamp not discussed - Ryan Bigg was keen on running a Melbourne event?

8. ruby.org.au website and membership database

  • Amanda has done some work in retrieving the information from the Google Form on the current website, and importing it into Mailchimp.
  • 550ish unique people registered via the website.
  • Some subscription lists already exist in Campaign Monitor, which we pay for.
  • Privacy is a big concern - a lot of the existing lists are from events and people signing up to newsletters, but these people are not necessarily part of (or would want to be part of) Ruby Australia.
  • Better to put things into our own database, so we can extend with things like subscriptions down the track, and then use the mailer APIs to send mail.
  • Ed volunteered to help with the database so perhaps contact him.
  • Main priority is the website for now. Go working group, go!

9. Other misc. goodies

  • The meeting ran overtime because Rebecca wasn’t watching the clock. Is nearly 10pm over East now.
  • Rebecca also failed to record the meeting properly so is typing all of these notes from memory.
  • Next meeting will try to be held informally in person at RubyConf, as it happens to be exactly a month away and most of us will be there.