They've always been a bit of a dud event here. I think because culturally we are cynics and I've always thought having a birthday party for software is up there with having one for your cat.
Speaker travel is not ideal because so many of the chatterboxes in OpenStack work for multinationals and possibly don’t need it. Reversing that to get more people TO speakers would be better. (ie use the money for more summit travel support)
I agree that many new meetup groups can use a monetary kick along until their sponsors pick up the ball.
Perhaps let's be creative. Put the $ can go towards something that incentivises developing and emerging economies participation in OpenStack. What about an annual birthday $500 scholarship/prize to folks that writes/creates/proposes something awesome?
Cheers
Tristan
From: Kavit Munshi [mailto:kavit@aptira.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 17 May 2016 12:50 PM
To: Kendall Waters <kendall@openstack.org>
Cc: Community@lists.openstack.org
Subject: Re: [openstack-community] OpenStack Birthday Feedback
Hello all,
We have thought of the past birthday celebrations as another meetup with a special purpose, that is sponsored by the Foundation (with cake :)) instead of our regular sponsors.
If the funds used for this can be better utilised with speaker travel sponsorships, I would be all for that.
regards,
Kavit
| Kavit Munshi Aptira - Making OpenStack Great Again! Australia Toll Free: 1800 APTIRA
|
On 16 May 2016 at 20:35, Kendall Waters <kendall@openstack.org> wrote:
Hi everyone,
For the past few years, the Foundation has contributed funding & graphics for "birthday parties" organized by official user groups around the world. It's something we have celebrated each year in July, and in 2015 we hit a pretty big milestone with the 5th birthday. We typically create and distribute graphics and a presentation, help promote the events and give qualifying groups $500 USD to supplement costs for food / space / etc.
Since we passed the 5-year milestone, we wanted to start a discussion with user group leaders and the community to see how much value you find in the birthday parties. Are they an important tradition for your local community members, or should we redirect funding and efforts to other user group activities, such as sponsoring speaker travel?
We would love your feedback - are the OpenStack birthdays something that you would like the Foundation to continue supporting?
Cheers,
Kendall
PS - User group leaders should also have received communication from your local Ambassador directly about the availability of funding for special activities. If you haven't seen that yet, contact your Ambassador: https://groups.openstack.org/ambassador-program
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