Ruby Australia - Committee Meeting - 16th October 2018
Attendees:
- Nick Wolf (NW)
- Toby Nieboer (TN)
- Ryan Bigg (RB)
- Rochelle LeQuesne (RL)
- Sharon Vaughan (SV)
- Lachlan Hardy (LH)
Apologies:
- Matt Stevenson (MS)
- Caitlin Palmer-Bright (CP)
Grants (Sharon)
SV: I looked at large businesses that have supporting the community funds. I’ve been looking at some of those lately. Some of them are quite specific, such as suburb specific. I believe to support suburbs where their businesses are located.
Sponsorship update (Rachelle)
RL: Nothing Major, we’ve gotten some enquiries about RailsCamps and allocating tickets and also how to apply for diversity tickets. One person just wanted to follow up that their ticket application had been received.
TN: At the moment we have a number of applications and an equal number of tickets that we can allocate. Right now it’s looking really good. We’re closing applications at the end of the week. So it’s looking very good for applicants now.
Website redesign (Matt)
NW: No updates
Events (Lachlan)
LH: Nothing to report
Documentation (Toby/Lachlan)
LH: Nothing to report
RubyConf 2019 (Caitlin/Sharon/Toby)
SV: We’ve got 240+ CFP, almost 100 hours came in within the last 24 hours. We’ve closed now and we’ve got 3 weeks to get those assessed and narrowed down.
NW: So it’s looking like a wide range of talks?
SV: The talks are just Super! It actually breaks my heart that we have to narrow it down to such a small amount of talks and that we’re only doing 2 days. I’m hoping that we can convince those people to do talks on Meetups. The breadth is quite wide so it will be challenging narrowing it down to a theme.
NW: When are you doing a callout for volunteers?
SV: Going by last year it’s likely to be relatively late in the peace, 2 to 4 weeks out.
TN: We also sold the last early bird ticket just recently.
LH: Did anyone go to LevelsConf?
SV: Yes, with the posters and Lanyards, they actually did a lot of innovative stuff, I’ve also suggested that we do the little booklet that they had detailing the speakers and you could take notes, and they had the code of conduct printed in there as well.
NW: I liked how the different colored lanyards indicated how comfortable you were with photographs.
Survey on why people attend (Lachlan)
LH: Nothing to report
RailsCamp 24 (Caitlin/Toby)
TN: We are about a week away from cutting off sales, it looks to be a cozy camp, with about 45 people, hopefully 50 by the time tickets close. Caitlin and I discussed if we should consider either skipping a camp or switching to yearly. The next one is supposed to be Perth and it would be 2 months after RubyConf, which seems like a big ask.
NW: If we did Perth 12 months rather than 6 months, what would the weather be like?
TN: Hot as HELL.
LH: Do we have numbers on where people are coming from?
LH: Perth might get less people from Melbourne because of flights and 5 hours etc, but maybe it’s good for the Perth community. This is similar to our prior conversation on Melbourne Confs vs Confs anywhere else. If having in it Perth doesn’t get us a bunch of Western Australians who otherwise wouldn’t be able to participate then why have it in Perth?
TN: The argument would be that we wouldn’t know unless we did it.
NW: This is something we can explore with the Member survey.
`If you were to attend a RailsCamp would you prefer somewhere that was cheap and local or potentially pricy and exotic?’
TN: One thing is that we’re Ruby Australia and therefore have a responsibility to all corners of the Australian community, while it would probably be easy and simple to just focus on camps in Sydney and Melbourne it might not be the best for the community as a whole.
TN: Also, Ruby Devs are pretty well compensated.
LH: It’s not about how much money people have though.
TN: What I mean is that it suggests people are more likely to be interested in new locations and something exciting rather than potentially the same two locations repeatedly.
NW: The other question to ask then is what is driving the downward trend in attendance.
LH: I think you’re right these are great questions for the survey.
- What they like about our events
- What makes them go / Why do they buy tickets
- Do they pay for them / do their bosses pay for them
- Are they interested if the flights are more than …
TN: I would love to drill down on did you go to this camp, that camp, if not why?
LH: What we want to do is ask a number of questions to build a persona,
ie Have they been to more than 10 RailsCamps, or have they been to more than 2 in the last 2 years. just to give us an idea of where they’re coming from. When they joined the community, have they spoken at meetups, and then opinions about attending other events in the community.
SV: If you need help with that I’d be interested.
NW: I’m keen to help out as well.
TN: I’d just love to know why people aren’t going to certain camps. I can understand why we got half as many for Darwin as we did for Adelaide, and Gold coast was close to Christmas, but if Melbourne is the epicentre, why did it only produce 80 sales, and then Tasmania is only 50.
SV: I think it’s too close to Christmas and for me Tasmania is too cold any time of the year, and Melbourne isn’t enough of a holiday.
NW: Well I guess this is what the survey will help with.
SV: Could we ever have RailsCamp ON A TRAIN?
LH: I believe it’s been looked into before but was very expensive at the time, roughly 2-4000 per person.
NW: I am 1000% on board if we can ever make this happen.
SV: This may require more research.
Memberships benefit ideas (Nick)
NW: I wanted to ask if anyone saw any issues or challenges with the follow options being potential options.
Stickers on the forum
Physical custom stickers
Early (7 days) access to tickets for events (but no discount)
Shout out on the website
At RoRo “Raise your hands if you’re a personal sponsor” “These people are making it happen”
Private working group (invite to work on the website as part of an ‘elite’ team)
Shoutout in booklet or pamphlet at RubyConf
New RailsGirls Melbourne
SV: It’s happening on the 9th and 10th of Nov. We’ve decided to go with caps rather than t shirts for mentors, but the attendees get t shirts. I’ve also asked Pat to tweet asking people to volunteer as Mentors.
NW: What’s the website?
SV: It should just be http://railsgirls.com but it’s just taking some time to update.
TN: I’d love to pitch in as a coach.
SV: I’m getting the catering done by the asylum seeker resource centre. They’ve been amazing in the past.
SGM notification email to the membership
TN: We just need to remember this needs to happen. IIRC There needs to be 14 days notice, or longer if we’re changing the constitution. Nick can you check and make sure this is done on time?
Call for new items
Available positions
NW: Which positions will become available this election?
TN: President and two general members?
NW: Your Presidency, Rachelle will be finishing her 12 month role and Matt his 6 month role. Also my 12 months as Secretary as well.
RB: Have we had any nominees so far?
TN: None yet, simply because it’s been common for people to nominate at Camp. We need to set up the nomination form on the RailsCamp Website. Nick I’ll give that to you so you can include it in the email out.