Open DjangoCon EU Support Group membership to aspiring organisers.

[carltongibson]

I know it's draft, so suggesting a tweak.

DjangoCon EU Support Group membership currently states:

Membership is open to former organizers of DjangoCon EUs.

That makes sense.

BUUUT... there are lots of people at each DjangoCon EU that have a Ooo, maybe I could do this near me moment. They should be able to join (maybe as an associate member or something) so that they can get a taste, have access to resources on How to do it…, and so on.

It might take a year or two for that moment to grow into an actual drive to do it, but we want to capture and nurture that moment (where at the moment it kind of just evaporates...)

[rixx]

I'm not sure I agree (no surprise there, I wrote and submitted the initial draft for the team).

First off, I definitely agree that hopeful/future/interested organisers should be able to get experience and insight into event running before taking on DCEU. Not being able to do that is a big part of the organiser burnout we're seeing imo. That's actually part of the team's responsibilites: putting future organisers in touch with the current ones, so that they can join the team / shadow the organisers and learn what the job involves etc. Imo that's the best way to get more experienced, and this team should make that a possibility as much as possible (by increasing the lead time on the choice of team/venue, making this option to join the current team a well-known option etc).

However, this team's responsibilities were chosen to fit people who already have experience running DCEU: Vetting proposals by potential organisers (including sanity-checking the budget), providing regular check-ins if wanted to make sure nothing is forgotten, and collecting all those resources that make running an event easier and better. Part of them will be published to be accessible for everybody, especially prospective organisers, while another part would be available on request (past budgets, sponsor contacts etc, things you don't want to put on a public website).

[carltongibson]

Yep, I see the sense here!

The thing I've felt missing is some explicit reach out here if you have this feeling, so that interested (however slightly) have a clear way to grow that.

(The callout at various DjangoCons has been "If you want to do it", which might be a bit daunting. Something a wee-bit lighter… It might take me several years to get from 🤔 to a proposal.)

Happy if you want to close this if that's already considered.

Thanks @rixx!

[thibaudcolas]

We’ve not received any replies on our call for proposal for DjangoCon Europe 2025 organizers. For the working group, I’d suggest reflecting on whether you’d want to change the plans based on that. If we don’t have a DjangoCon Europe in 2025 and the group is only about past organizers supporting current ones, there wouldn’t be much to do for the rest of 2024 (or if working amongst yourselves it’d be for a provisional event in 2026).

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In the short term we’re going to do some more direct outreach to European event organizers to see what’s still possible for 2025. Either do more active support to make a DjangoCon proposal, or identify alternative Django events. If anyone’s interested in helping with that please let me know and I’ll add you to our comms channels.

[carltongibson]

We’ve not received any replies ...

@thibaudcolas Grrr. Just as a data point, I was (still am) pondering whether I could do this one year. I didn't have capacity this year, but I looked a the post and the licensing agreement linked there, and was just overwhelmed: it's all obligations, and very little/nothing in the line of "we can help you get this going".

[thibaudcolas]

@carltongibson yes, my understanding is this working group is the most tangible kind of help facilitated by the DSF, and the call for proposal and licensing agreement predate the working group being up and running. Aside from the WG, the DSF board’s way of helping organizers is primarily with funding. Looking at past DSF funding, I believe it’s on the order of $5-10k per event.

Aside from that – it’s up to existing working groups, and individual board members / board decisions, to decide what kind of help is offered. So for example I’m sure the social media WG would be up for helping with conference comms, but it’s also not been active long enough to help with the call for proposal.

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Anyway, for now @benjaoming and a few others have been working on an updated call for proposal, which will make it quite a bit clearer what kind of help is available.