Committee Meeting - 21st June 2016

Ruby Australia Meetings
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Ruby Australia Committee Meeting Minutes

21st of June, 2016 - 7:00pm AEST

Held via GoToMeeting

Committee Members Present

  • Melissa Kaulfuss (Vice-President)
  • Rebecca Skinner (Secretary)
  • Rob Jacoby
  • Lauren Hennessy

Apologies

  • Leonard Garvey (President)
  • Jo Cranford (Treasurer)
  • Amanda Neumann
  • Angus Scown

Committee nominations

  • Three positions will be up for nomination at Railscamp 19 - vice president and two general members.
    • Update: Also now, secretary.
  • We now have a copy of the original committee constitution, and a New Committee Member Welcome Guide!
  • As a group, unsure what is happening with Angus’ committee membership at the moment.
    • Proposal to draft a reply email for Len to send back to Angus - Lauren to handle
  • A post should be written for the mailing list, to announce open nominations
    • This could be in the form of an email to the secretary or some nominated address, with the name of the person being nominated and 25 words or less about why they are being nominated
    • Precedent is there for nominations pre-camp - Jo nominated herself before the last RC.
  • The actual process isn’t super important - the important part is letting people know what positions are available, giving them time to think about what they want to say before the camp, and also speeding up the nomination process during the meeting itself (as it can take some time).
  • Parts of the New Committee Member Welcome Guide can be used in the initial post, to let people know a bit about what they’re signing up for.
  • A Google form would be easy to set up to collect nominations.
    • Rob will set one up - too easy!

Railscamp update

  • Possible controversy incoming - not as much alcohol to be provided!
  • Budget is not as healthy as expected - some smaller sponsorships fell through
  • Alcohol is expensive!
    • Can be a very large and also quite unpredictable cost.
    • Almost every camp in recent memory has had large $1000+ alcohol top-ups mid-camp
    • Safety and liability issues can crop up when supplying endless amounts of booze
    • Will be able to make mulled wine, cider, hot chocolate, spiced rum, etc. in the kitchens at night
    • Wine tasting during the day on Sunday
    • The buses to the camp will stop at a Dan Murphy’s so campers can stock up on their own alcohol
    • CampJS has tried not supplying alcohol, just providing a method of keeping alcohol cold
    • Can backfire, as people will tend to bring spirits to avoid lugging around beer
    • Apparently Aldi beer is bad! Who knew!
  • 113 registered attendees for the camp! Awesome! :smiley:

RubyConf update

  • Venue for RubyConf AU 2017 will be Melbourne Convention & Entertainment Center (MCEC)
  • Dates will be 9th-10th February 2017
  • Splash page being finalized
  • Super-early-bird tickets will be put on sale during Railscamp
  • Nothing locked in yet for social events
    • Closing party won’t revolve around alcohol!
    • Looking more for activities instead of standing around drinking

Rails Girls funding

  • BrisRuby is having trouble getting sponsors for Rails Girls
  • Original plan many moons ago was a blanket sponsorship amount, $20 per attendee, but that was before the sponsorship prospectus was set up
  • Sponsorship prospectus changed it to be Mel/Syd only, because that’s where all the sponsorship money comes from
  • The big problem is that the information about sponsorships is not being broadcast; Rachelle and Sorcha didn’t even know it was available
  • Sponsorships were set up to cover the big things, but also help out with the smaller events where its harder to find sponsors
  • Budget for RubyConf is looking healthy (assuming good ticket sales) so there should be money to cover events like RG
  • We would like to be able to offer that $20pp from Ruby AU to any Rails Girls event that asks for it
  • There’s a Slack community that most of the RG organizers are in; we can let them know that the sponsorship is available
  • We’re all in agreement we would like to do it, but Jo has to give the final nod as she is our esteemed Treasurer
    • Update: she said yes to RG Brisbane! :sparkling_heart:

Rob says his goodbyes!

  • He’s looking forward to having a rest after two years on the committee, and just organising confs (because that is apparently much easier)
  • He’s had much fun and wishes us luck with everything to come :slight_smile:
  • Mel isn’t saying her goodbyes now - she’ll see us all at Railscamp in Adelaide
  • Rob had to get his farewells on the record and yes they are indeed now in the minutes!
  • Thank you for your service Rob, you’ve been a most excellent committee member, an awesome conf organizer, and we all look forward to seeing you at future events!

ps. technical glitches and strange muted microphones are fun!