Software Freedom Day, Sat 21 Sep 2013

Organising committee

Brett James, Duncan Macneil and Ben Sturmfels.

Principles for the event

• no burnout - we're all busy enough, so if we find this is becoming hard work, we probably need to simplify
• inclusive and appealing to newbies
• promote free software and open source as an alternative to proprietary software
• reunite the technical community in Ballarat
• take steps towards an ongoing community group that may be BLUG-like, but may also be subtly different like a Hackerspace

Theme: Free Software for Artists

This is a great angle because it:

1. appeals to a group of people outside the typical technical community b. Ballarat and surrounds have an active artistic community c. we're at an art gallery!

Venue: Art Gallery of Ballarat Annexe 10am - 1pm

Cost is around $200 including GST and public liability insurance.

Seating is available for up to 130. We've advised that we'd expect up to about 40 people given the relatively low local turnout to LCA and a recent ACS meeting.

AV setup is included. The space features a large TV which we assume we can plug into from the lecturn. We probably won't use a mic given we expect a fairly "intimate" event.

Duncan has now booked and paid for this awesome venue. He's currently out of pocket for around $200 so we'll have to make sure we work that out.

Duncan is approaching Matt Morris at Ballarat ICT and Ballarat City Council for sponsorship of venue fee. In lieu of this, we may want to ask for a gold-coin donation and split the remaining cost ourselves.

Schedule of the day

09:00: Set up

10:00: Doors open

10:30: Introductory talk on Free Software, Ben Sturmfels (30 mins)

• about Software Freedom Day
• include screenshot of map showing international events

11:10: Free Software For Artists, Duncan Macneil (30 mins)

11:50: Discussion workshop: Encouraging diversity (eg. gender, technical knowledge, disability, spoken language)

• Duncan suggests pushing this a little more towards connecting people in disparate small towns. Ie. location diversity.
• Ben is approaching Kathy Reid to possibly facilitate this discussion (she's awesome at this).

12:30: Discussion workshop: Building the Hackerspace/Free Software community in Ballarat (30 mins)

• Brett to facilitate this discussion and possibly start out with brief demo.

13:00: Pack up

13:30: Community drinks and lunch at The Lane (over the road)

We could try to run two discussion workshops at once, but given the expected low turnout, we've agreed that it's best to keep everyone together and keep the sessions short. That way it's not too much bother to sit through a session that you're less interested in.

Marketing

Once we have a media release and an updated website, we can contact the following:

• 3BA community events
• Mix FM have something similar
• City of Ballarat events listings
• BLUG mailing list - I have access to a copy from Josh
• Comp Sci/ICT dept at University of Ballarat
• Comp Sci/ICT dept at ACU
• IT teachers at various secondary schools
• Carolynne Hamdorf LEAP (Duncan knows)
• Tourism Ballarat
• Malcolm Valance at Tech Park (Duncan knows)
• Ballarat subreddit
• Ballarat Courier?
• Matt Morris at Ballarat ICT (Duncan knows)
• ABC Local Radio - possible interview?
• local teachers

Ben runs the sfd.org.au website. Our event is also registered on the international Software Freedom Day website.

We should also prepare flyers to be distributed on work noticeboards etc.

Individuals to personally invite (aka. VIPs)

These are people who deserve a personal invitation to the event (a personal invitation is a lot more powerful than a bulk email). I suggest we collect a list here of people that should be invited. Some may be interested in helping out on the day too.

• Josh Stewart
• Sae Ra Germain
• Michael Ellery
• Kathy Reid (Geelong) - she'd be awesome to moderate a discussion workshop

Audio recordings

Video is likely to be too much effort, so just recording audio would be a good balance. Brett is experienced with this. Ben also has a good quality digital audio recorder (Zoom H4n) if this is useful. It may well be worth finding an extra person to actually babysit the recording gear so that Duncan, Brett and Ben are free for other things. My brother Darcy might be able to do this.

Photos

Brett is a keen photographer; thanks Brett!

Things to bring

• name/email collection sheet, clipboard and pens
• Blu-tac, string, tape for banners
• stickers and balloons
• sticky name tags and pen
• lollies for questions - KitKat?

Jobs for the day

• welcoming people, giving them a name tag
• taking photos
• babysitting the audio recording gear
• presenting
• facilitating a discussion workshop

Building up to a bigger event for next year

If we're looking to build this event up for next year and say get a grant from City of Ballarat, it would be a good idea to have:

• good quality photos of the day - anyone know an enthusiastic amateur photographer?
• a count of numbers for the day
• a way of collecting some contact details for announcing the 2014 event
• possibly a brief post-event survey - "how likely are you to recommend this event to a friend?"