Conference Committee/Planning meeting 1/Notes

2013 London bid

Hong Kong won. London lost!

Jury is risk averse James F: London was: "Close second" and had a "Bold and ambitious plan"

UK bids feedback

London feedback

• Chapter support was lukewarm even when there were two UK bids, but nothing really improved after that. But it was noted that WMUK had provided the support that the bid team had asked for.
• UK chapter has money, but HK chapter dedicated a lot more trustee time towards the bid
• Chapter needs to detail specific commitments
• Need to focus on attendees who would be at the lower end of the budget spectrum: get hostels/budget hotels/uni dorms etc. early on
• Jury liked the Barbican venue - good and well contained
• The high cost leads to a much higher fundraising target requirement than some of its competitors. Some of the worry about what happens if the target isn't met might have been lowered if the bid were able to show how the budget could be modified in such a situation.

Bristol feedback

• Bid team didn't turn up to IRC meeting etc.
• Venues were too spread out - multiple venues not good.
• Crazy expensive to get there - very few direct flights from outside of UK (London, Manchester etc don't have this problem). The lower cost of the location is not enough to compensate for the increase in cost of getting there.
• One Jury had to ask the same question 7 different times and still failed to get a satisfactory answer.

2014 bid

The 2013 bid was critiqued by Ed, other possible venues were discussed.

• London
  • Much of the 2013 bid text is reusable
  • Strengths and weaknesses of bid:

    University dorms would have been worthing getting

    210 beds within a few minutes walk

    ~1k beds around London bridge which is a couple stops away

    Very good choice of venue; interesting, lots in the venue

    Good cultural events program

    Pre-conference events; not much on it in the bid because it wasn't part of the bid criteria

    Many accomodation choices

    London First has a person who is specifically in charge of uni accomodation for conferences

• Manchester? http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Wikimania_Bid

  Good transport links

• Nottingham?
  • Issues with size
• Brighton?
  • Popular conference venue, able to host large conferences
  • Fish and chips
• Birmingham?

It was decided that the London bid laid so much groundwork that it made sense to stick with London as the 2014 venue city.

Issues to think about

• Communications
• Bank account
• Staff time: Daria?
• Board role?
• Time commitment?

Next steps

• Monthly briefing of the board, staff and community
• Monthly Skype/conference call
• Mailing List - Mike Peel
• Domain name - Mike Peel
• Google Docs - contact details

• Joseph Seddon - Committe lead
• Harry Mitchell - Project Manager - People chaser
• Ed Saperia - Wikimania 2014 lead
• Tom Morton ErrantX - Committee Communications
• Mike Peel - Committee technical lead
• James Forrester
• Katie Chan
• Leutha
• Rock drum
• Tom Morris