Montreal Drupal Camp 2010 Organizational Meeting II

Posted by mirabuck on August 24, 2010 at 7:25pm

Start:

2010-08-30 18:00 - 20:00 America/Montreal

Organizers:

xmacinfo

mirabuck

rokea

Event type:

User group meeting

2nd organizational meeting for Montreal Drupalcamp 2010. Anyone interested in helping out, sponsoring or being involved in any way is welcome to attend.

TP1 Internet 360, 505, boul. De Maisonneuve Ouest, Bureau 200, Montréal (Québec) H3A 3C2

Comments

Very good. Will the Evolving

Posted by Ryan Palmer on August 25, 2010 at 2:21am

Very good. Will the Evolving Web crew be back from DCCPH by then?

Yes! They all got back last

Posted by mirmartz (not verified) on August 30, 2010 at 1:25pm

Yes! They all got back last night.

I won't be back until the 09/01 but...

Posted by omar on August 25, 2010 at 8:53am

I am online and following this stuff closely. In particular, I can help out with, and would love to contribute to the thinking about:
* sponsorship structure and contacting sponsors (some work started, much more to do)
* finding infrastructure and people to do simultaneous translation if we want to do it (have contacts for equipment and leads for some translators)
* contacting potential speakers and "keynoters" (already spoke to webchick... and "re-chatted" with others about the idea of simulcasting Dries' Toronto keynote)
* organising food (as long as we're ready for the same general menu as last year which people seemed to appreciate (easy to do since I already went through the process last year)
* organising a new t-shirt design based on the very popular version of the druplicon from last year (we can contribute some design time)
* contributing to the creation of the website (nothing done yet, but I'd consider redoing it with the COD install profile)
* communicating with the DA (already had some discussions with the appropriate folks here in Copenhagen)
* helping with communications via g.d.o. (so far I just put the planning wiki page as the top item and have been trying to add some ideas there)

Anyway, I really don't want to get in the way of others' initiatives, I'm just offering help where I can. If others want to be responsible for some of the elements above, go for it! Otherwise, since I will not be physically present, I will be more active on the newly created wiki page.

Need help in Ottawa/Gatineau

Posted by Marcel J on August 26, 2010 at 2:14am

Hi,
I started to learn Drupal 6 and 7 on my spare time about 2 months ago, and really like the D7 interface.
Questions: Do you know anymore in the Ottawa area that is a member of the group and that I can contact for help (FYI, French is my first language)? I have to develop a multilingual site for a school with a catalog for teachers and classes at different levels and in many countries. Is Ubercart a good solution for the catalog? Anyway, it'll be good if I could talk/meet with a developer and discuss the requirements. There is also a possibility of a small budget to develop a basic shell as startup/prototype.

A good idea would indeed be to go to the meetup in Montréal so I'll see if I can make it.

Thanks,

Marcel

Using drupal

Posted by i46 on August 26, 2010 at 2:35am

I recommend you reading using drupal book by lullabot developers, they dedicated a whole chapter on how to build multilingual site and what kind of modules that you need.

http://www.amazon.ca/Using-Drupal-Angela-Byron/dp/0596515804/ref=sr_1_1?...

it's really awesome book, I love it.

The Ottawa group will be getting together in a couple of weeks

Posted by kathc on August 26, 2010 at 11:48am

http://groups.drupal.org/ottawa
If you want to post in that one - I'm not sure if everybody also follows Montreal posts.

Ottawa Group & Course Catalog

Posted by Marcel J on August 27, 2010 at 12:26am

Thanks Kath, it's a good idea. I didn't know there was a group in Ottawa. I will join and see if I get someone interested with this project.
Now about the catalog, what I want to build is not really an e-commerce, well, at least not in its first iteration. Let's say you have 200 teachers in France, 20 in Quebec, who offer the same series of courses, and you want to offer those courses to your anonymous visitors. You'd start a taxo with vocab to define the courses, then you may have another vocab to describe the location (country, region, city, etc), and a list of teacher with public profile and contact form. In this context I think each course can be defined as a product with attributes. Let's take an example, your visitor is looking for course X in Montreal, so he should be able to navigate your catalog and find the course, the location, the teacher, the time, etc. with a link to the teacher's contact form to gather more information.
I'm looking to find the best and most effective way to develop that kind of catalog. So I'm wondering if Ubercart is a good solution or if it is preferable to start from scratch and use a mix of modules like Taxo/CCK/Views, etc? There should be something like that somewhere in the Drupal universe that could help, no!

Thanks for the hint, I'll join the Ottawa group.

Marcel

Quiboweb

Posted by pierrepaul on August 30, 2010 at 5:46pm

I will be there for Quiboweb, Francois Viens isn't sure to be able to make it.

Ask & task me

Posted by sfyn on August 30, 2010 at 6:13pm

I would like to be there but I just got back from Copenhagen, and am seeing a friend off tonight for a year.

Still feel free to ask me to do things. In particular you can count on me for:

Whisper translation (slash-IRC-slash-skype) if we can't get pros
Preparing at least one session
Getting nametags, schedules, etc... printed

Will try my best to make it,

Posted by fei on August 30, 2010 at 7:36pm

Will try my best to make it, possible a bit late.

I won't be able to make the

Posted by Ryan Palmer on August 30, 2010 at 9:52pm

I won't be able to make the meeting tonight unfortunately -- I'm totally swamped this week. Here are my thoughts:

Lets use the same caterer as last year. I heard no complaints, and everybody raved about the food for the second year in a row.
I've got the keys to the web site and can simply duplicate the database and preserve an archival copy at 2009.drupalcampmontreal.com, and gut the 2010 edition in preparation for new sessions, voting, signups, etc. If somebody wants to make the theme, I can provide SVN access.
I've got our first sponsor: Drupal Connect out of New York. We should determine what the sponsor levels will be this year... I'd suggest last year + 25% or something along those lines.
I will volunteer to manage the finances again this year, but we need to make one thing clear to potential sponsors: if their money is not in by the time the camp happens, they won't be listed as sponsors. Some sponsors took over 3 months to pay up last year.
I believe the surplus from last year's camp was approximately $150. I'll have to double-check.
I will volunteer to manage the signup table again this year, unless someone else steps forward to do so.
I vote the "highly suggested donation" amount be doubled.

Hi Ryan, Unfortunately, I

Posted by mirabuck on August 31, 2010 at 11:43am

Hi Ryan,

Unfortunately, I didn't notice your post until after the meeting. See my responses to your points inline.

Andrew

Lets use the same caterer as last year. I heard no complaints, and everybody raved about the food for the second year in a row.
>> This wasn't brought up, but I for one would agree.
I've got the keys to the web site and can simply duplicate the database and preserve an archival copy at 2009.drupalcampmontreal.com, and gut the 2010 edition in preparation for new sessions, voting, signups, etc. If somebody wants to make the theme, I can provide SVN access.
>> TP1 are putting a design together before Sept. 13th. Xmacinfo will turn it into a Drupal theme shortly thereafter. We agreed last night that gutting last year's DB was indeed the way to go as it saves us redoing all the i18n work. A copy of last year's site at 2009.drupalcampmontreal.com makes sense to me. We also agreed last night on the camp dates (Oct. 23rd/24th). Could you potentially put a simple page up on the gutted 2010 site announcing the dates in French and English ahead of us getting the theme sorted?
I've got our first sponsor: Drupal Connect out of New York. We should determine what the sponsor levels will be this year... I'd suggest last year + 25% or something along those lines.
>> Can you mark down the sponsorship amount on the wiki page?--we've started a list already. We talked about increasing the spon sorship amounts from last year, but when it was brought up that the higher $1200 target was apparently never reached by any of the sponsors we decided to keep them the same. We contemplated adding a 4th $5000 level but made no final decision regarding this.
I will volunteer to manage the finances again this year, but we need to make one thing clear to potential sponsors: if their money is not in by the time the camp happens, they won't be listed as sponsors. Some sponsors took over 3 months to pay up last year.
>> This was brought up last night in your absence and there weren't any objections. You tenacity in tracking down sponsorship $$ last year was commended.
I believe the surplus from last year's camp was approximately $150. I'll have to double-check.
I will volunteer to manage the signup table again this year, unless someone else steps forward to do so.
I vote the "highly suggested donation" amount be doubled.
>> We discussed bumping the suggested donation. It was suggested that we keep the $20.00 price tag which makes the camp accessible to all and consider making T-shirts a paid extra if it looks like we're unable to make up enough funds with sponsorship dollars.

Suggested donation amount

Posted by mvc on August 31, 2010 at 1:59pm

I strongly agree that $20 is a good number; last year people showed up who were curious about Drupal and the low fee helped encourage them to show up to see what it was all about. I think setting a low amount will help bring people into the community, and asking that people pay for t-shirts if necessary would help us not lose money if there aren't enough sponsors.

Hi Ryan...looks like Andrew

Posted by mirmartz (not verified) on August 31, 2010 at 6:28pm

Hi Ryan...looks like Andrew beat me to the response

"Lets use the same caterer as last year." - I've heard lots more enthusiastic responses to this one :)

"I believe the surplus from last year's camp was approximately $150." - Cool!

"I will volunteer to manage the signup table again this year" - I would also volunteer to work the signup table this year. That was my fav part of the camp last year. We'll probably have 4 shifts of 2 people for that, so there's plenty more room for others!

"I vote the "highly suggested donation" amount be doubled." - This really depends how good a job we do with securing sponsorships and what purchasing decisions we make. Last year, before you got involved as treasurer, we created a simple fixed/variable costs spreadsheet and used it to try to manage the budget details as the camp came together. I'm pretty sure you have access to it...and can do something much better ;) That's to say that the suggested donation amount can't really be finalized until we have a better sense of sponsorship and purchasing trade offs. If you look at last year's document you'll see that sponsorship dollars subsidized entrances to the tune of about 70%, if you treat sponsor entrances as "free" (entrances were 30% of the total budget). Some of the tax decisions you made regarding use of cash also affected all of this.

t-shirts and money

Posted by carefulMEDIA on August 31, 2010 at 2:09pm

Any consideration for charging $30-$40, assembling conference bags full of sponsor's literature with the t-shirt INCLUDED in the inflated price? Then you definitely get the shirt sale and you have 250 shirts around town marketing the conference for next year. I personally like conference swag but probably wouldn't buy it.

I'll be happy to take flyers to the Sept 11/12 PodCamp if they're ready . . .

PodCamp

Posted by pierrepaul on August 31, 2010 at 4:32pm

I think that's a good idea to go to podcamp and make some exposure. We could get a few power-users there that may be intrigued on drupal but never had the time to search for it. The podcamp has some excellent/important speakers too, more important Montreal voices couldn't be bad for us.

Some of them are pretty hardcore wordpress/buddypress users. Hell, we can do a lot better than that.

Oops

Posted by mirmartz (not verified) on August 31, 2010 at 7:01pm

Moved to current meeting.

I like the idea of having

Posted by Ryan Palmer on August 31, 2010 at 8:17pm

I like the idea of having people pay extra for a t-shirt. Most shirts probably end up as rags anyway. Assuming similar costs to last year, this decision would bring our marginal cost per participant under $20, and take some of the pressure off a) raising the suggested donation, or b) raising additional sponsorship.

Regarding the catering.. I do recall there being an absolute tonne of food left over in previous years. If we stick with the same caterer, I suggest we low-ball the numbers to save some $$.