Committee Meeting Agenda
21st May 2019
Attendees
• Pat Allan
• Rachael Goodenough
• Ryan Bigg
• Sonya Corcoran
• Matt Stevenson
• Kieran Andrews
• Cameo Langford
• Caroline Bambrick
1. Welcome to Caroline, Cameo, Kieran 
Pat: Welcome to the May meeting, lovely to have you all here. Special welcome to Caroline, Cameo and Kieran. Great to have you all here and have you part of the committee. So glad to have you here to help us get shit done. Don’t know if you’ve had an opportunity to look at the agenda. Since I’ve been President I’ve been making it up as I go along, structure has changed a bit over 6 months, but we break it down as regular business, occasional business and irregular business
2. Regular Business:
a. Finances (RB)
Pat : Ryan is not on the call, but he did send some through some notes. 94k in the bank. Its currently looking like last conf made a loss of 35k due to attendance being lower. I guess that’s the general gist of things. Rails Camp, the last one, roughly broke even. We’ll get clarity from that over the coming weeks. I certainly enjoyed the Rails Camp!
Caroline : It was really great
Kieran : Yeah it was awesome
Caroline: I loved the panel they organised. I glad they had the panel.
Kieran : Always good to have a competition or things running.
b. RubyConf AU (RG)
i. 2020
Rachael : So I’m currently checking out venues, so that is fun. Never really done that before. Started getting a little bit nervous as all of the venues I’m looking at for Feb/March are already at a waitlist. My shortlist is looking like the Pullman or Melbourne Town Hall. I’m personally vibing Melbourne town hall. I really like it, what’s everyone’s thoughts?
Pat : Its outside my window
Rachael: There you go, roll on in
Caroline : A central location is really good. Is there an organising committee?
Rachael : Yep 3 x other people on the team, we’re just figuring out who’s doing what. I’ve just taken over the role of venues and getting out and about. Ben is doing the website. We also have Elizabeth from Envato, and Emily Martyn who I work with at Readify. We’ve got a nice little crew.
c. Rails Camps
. RC 25 (PA, CB, KA)
d. Rails Girls (SC)
Sox : There is a little bit of chitter chatter. Angie, she’s really busy atm. She has recruited me and Angela in to help, then Angela went to the US. We just need a venue. We’re going to get a few others to help out too. Ill kick that conversation off again.
Cameo : Happy to help out
Sox : Yeah that would be awesome. We just need to see it done one round through. Ill add you to the Rails Girl group and we can start a conversation. The idea is to take a bit of the admin load off so we can run hem
Rachael : I’ve run a few NodeGirls workshops too if you need some help to build out a framework.
3. Occasional Business
. Website (MS)
Pat : Hey we have a new website!
Matt : We do and its looking fab.
Pat: You happy with having it out there and getting it shipped.
Matt : Everyone seems happy with it. Twitter, feedback in general is good. Even positive feedback from the original people who did the website. There are a few things I want to tidy up to make sure it’s less maintenance. Also, for the new members if we can get your bios and your avatar, I’ll get it up on the website too.
a. Sponsorship (SC)
Sox : Um still following up with people. There is a google doc that I’ve shared. It’s just following up now.
4. Irregular Business
. Rails Camp 26
Pat: Rails Camp 26 we can expect late this year. We had one person reply and they’re on this call : Cameo! Cameo you’ve spoken to Ness and Celia?
Cameo : Yep, Ness and Celia will help to organise the next with the caveat that it is a local one, as it was tricky trying to organise an interstate Rails Camp.
Pat : Celia has since emailed me a couple of ideas; they are all very far west Melbourne. At this point of time to catch the committee up; Sydney and Canberra haven’t hosted in the longest stretches of time, however no one has put their hand up to host, so we’re looking to work with whoever is willing?
Caroline : One question, has it been posted in slack looking for eoi for Rails Camp organisers? Just because I know it was brought up at Rails Camp but not everyone is there, and not everyone sees stuff off twitter?
Pat : Yep mentioned it on slack and our mailing list.
Ryan : Did it get mentioned at roro Melbourne?
Pat : Yep because I was hosting it.
Kieran: Ruby burgers in Adelaide? I might go on Friday and talk to a few people there.
Pat: We can maybe push Adelaide back to next year and maybe Tom can help out then
Kieran: and myself too
Pat: If Ruby:Burgers is next week, let’s have you have that chat this week. If that doesn’t happen, then we will take Cameo, Celia and Ness up on their offer. We need to make that decision sooner or later seeing as we need to lock in venues. What do other people think?
Ryan : If its Warrnambool there’s a chance I can come along and assist.
Pat : Yeah, I’m on the fence about Warrnambool, because it’s so far away.
Ryan : We could go out to Geelong? We’ve done Mornington Peninsula a few times too
Pat : I feel like this will sit mostly with the organisers. Anyone not a fan?
Caroline : Looks likes it’s our best option
Pat : Cameo, congrats!
Cameo : Thanks, I guess. As far as interstate goes. I’m happy to try and organise,
Pat : I think Melbourne is the way to go right now. I’m not expecting anyone to suddenly come out of the woodwork. The downside is that if it is Melbourne then that is the where the next conf is so that’s two events in Melbourne in the next year
Pat : It could be using Warrnambool as a place, means that it’s not quite a Melbourne feel. Catch is, will people from interstate come because it’s not just 4 hours on a plane, it’s another 4 hours on a train
Ryan : Prob run it as far as Geelong, that would be sensible.
Pat : Cameo ill email you and them, happy for it to go ahead near Melbourne but Warrnambool might be a bit too far
Cameo: Yeah that’s fair.
a. Community Survey
. 113 responses thus far.
i. Deadline extended to end of May.
ii. One last push for promotion.
Pat: When I wrote up the agenda, we had 113 responses, which is not bad, but we have a 1000 people on slack, so I pushed out the deadline. Yeah, we’ll try and do one last push. If you could message out on slack and twitter, harass colleagues and mention it at meetups, that would be wonderful! Then we’ll have to deal with collating the data.
b. General Meeting Results
. New committee members 
i. Both special resolutions passed.
- Need a PR to update the constitution
ii. I could have been more organised (too many hats)
Pat: I kind of shared what happened in slack. We have out new committee members. Both of our special resolutions passed. Need a PR to update the constitution. Matt, can I leave that with you?
Matt: Yep all good
Pat : Think the meeting went well. Didn’t feel it was as organised as it should have been. As Ryan can attest, sending him a 30:minute text beforehand asking for the treasurer’s report.
Caroline : And my on the spot nomination.
Sox : That’s how they get ya, Caroline 
Caroline : Everyone suddenly staring at me, this was the first I’d heard of it
Kieran : I was a little bit luckier; I was approached just before the meeting.
Pat : Historically I normally run the meetings as just a person in the community. This time I was actually in charge as President and I was the only the committee member there.
Matt : Don’t beat yourself up about it. I’m sure you did great.
Kieran: You’ve got many hats on.
Caroline : I’m just teasing.
Pat: I feel it went pretty well all things considered. It does offer ops to improve. We build a “this is how you prepare for an AGM” doco. Ill add to trello and put some basic notes together and then we can all flesh it out.
Sox : Thanks for doing all of that
c. Sponsorship tickets (CB)
Caroline : I don’t know if it’s worth talking about, but when did we last look at what makes up each tier? Looking at things like if a company can trade Rails Camp tickets for Ruby Conf tickets? I think it’s worth discussing, because I know some companies will trade every single Rails Camp ticket and then not contribute towards people going, whereas they will contribute to people going to the conf, as well as free tickets. Should we make some changes?
Sox: All open for suggestions. When I sent out the prospectus, I asked for feedback “What’s the roi for companies to become sponsors”
Caroline: Yeah, it’s a tricky one, I personally think that having people in your company represent at Rails Camp is highly valuable, but some company perspectives are all about delivering business value and that’s the only way you can spend money.
Sox: I think we need to build out “why is Rails Camp good” : one of my ideas is to gather testimonials where they had value from Ruby Conf and Rails Camp. I think we can do a better job on telling people why its valuable. Company sponsor for recruitment, that’s one of the main reasons. But what we want to spin is retention, you have stressed individuals, they go away for a retreat. I’m all ears, all up for suggestions.
Kieran: Getting budget approval for Ruby Conf, in comparison to Rails Camp IS so much harder. I think we need to explain it better. I personally get more benefits from Rails Camp, but easier to get funding for Rails Conf
Sox: What I’ve done previously is templated letters and that’s what you hand to your boss, stats and details. Puts a bit more weight. Have a look at the prospectus, let me know if you think if there is anything else I can add let’s stick it in there. I think testimonials, people who are big in the community ‘This is why its important” because the people who make the decisions don’t go to the Rails Camp, how can we communicate to them that its important?
d. Key Focuses
. Membership Management
i. Mailing Lists
ii. Tech/running process for the next general meeting
iii. Collating and reporting on the survey
e. Other focuses to consider
. Meetup Organiser Liaising
i. Event Liaising
ii. Industry/Policy Liaising (e.g. #aabill, assisting juniors)
iii. Documenting processes
iv. Grants
Pat : Think it’s clear we need to work on how we manage members, we don’t know who all our members are. Arguably its anyone who has been to a conf or a Rails Camp. Which is potentially a lot of people. We should have better records about it. We do have an email list and I don’t know if we can let people unsubscribe from that list, but they can choose not to be a member.
Matt : Maybe we could link the database to the forums?
Pat : Don’t need an answer on this tonight, but something we need to lock down in the next few months before the next general meeting. The next general meeting we need to work out how it gets done so we can run it online. Something to think about. If you have experience running online meetings, maybe share thoughts on slack. We’ll try and iron things out. There is also the survey, anyone want to help collate the results of that?
Caroline : What’s been used to collect the data?
Pat : Currently it’s in a google form. There was a report of the last time we did it which was 4 to 5 years ago which could be useful as a reference. We want summary data where aggregating the data makes sense; ages, size of company, gender, whatever demographic, role data, need to aggregate to a nice few charts and then go through the text answers to read through and think about how it impacts what we do as a an organisation, how we better serve the community. Yeah, maybe once the results are in, we all read and work out how to represent in a report. If anyone wants to lead this, feel free to hit me up on slack. It feels like these are the kind of things that need to happen in the near future. Def before the next general meeting, really in the next few months. Then there are other things that can be spread across the committee as well; Someone who communicates out to the communities/meetups, “hey, there is a general meeting happening”, “hey survey is out, can you let people know”. All this kind of stuff. Event liaison maybe isn’t a critical role right now because we have Rache for RubyConf, Cameo for Rails Camp and Sox for Rails Girls. But maybe we want to think about formalising? If you see ways to contribute in this manner feel free to step up, aka an industry person : kind of like how we stood up against the AAbill. Also documenting processes, grants are something we haven’t looked at before.
Kieran : The meeting stuff, prob more one of the important things to figure out how it is going to be run.
Sox : I’ve done a lot of online teaching of cohorts up to 300 if you want some ideas
Kieran: What sort of systems?
Sox: We used adobe connect, different Unis use different systems. Do we know what kind of numbers and does it have to be video based? Could it be a slack channel?
Pat: It could be, Ruby NZ run there’s through slack. They’ll be a good bunch of people to ask how they do that. How many people : don’t know. Would love to have 300 people on a call : the community has gone live! Reasonable ball park maybe 20 to 50. Times won’t always suit everyone. I feel like we get a a third to half of Rails Camp attendees at a general meeting.
Sox: I’ve run a conf, it was live, we had people all over Australia, it was quite an active q& a. It is possible. We could also add a to:do item for the meetups, to contact in advance of a meetup? Or we could take on a meetup individually? It doesn’t need to be one person. It could even be a channel in meetup announcements?
Caroline: Is it written done anywhere of who is running different meetups?
Sox: It changes quite frequently. For instance, I stepped in to help because Paul went to Adelaide. They all generally have an email address though
Pat: They’re all on meetup, we link to all of them on our website. That’s how I reached out leading up to the general meeting. We’ve got contacts for most.
Caroline: Were there any key action items to come out of this?
Pat: I need to double check Sox’s email forwards, I need to get in touch with Celia, Ness and Cameo to move forward on a Rails Camp. Need to put forward stuff on promoting the survey and then share it with all of you and ask everyone to make noise on that. We do have a Trello board which I know I’ve added some new folks to.
Caroline: Do I have power to add?
Pat: Maybe not. Ok well I’ll tweak that and then I guess stuff like membership that I was talking about, I’ll have a look through Trello and if there is something in that isn’t assigned then please jump and post a message.
Thanks so much everyone!