MautiCon Working Group

🔍🌐 During the Mauticon Working Group meetings, we brainstorm, plan, and share progress updates on various aspects of the Mautic Conferences. From logistics and event design to marketing efforts and sponsor relations, our discussions cover a wide spectrum. It's a vibrant forum where your ideas can truly make a difference!

💡🤝 We strongly encourage anyone passionate about Mautic and event organizing to join these meetings. Not only will you help shape our global conferences, but you also get to be part of a dedicated team of open-source enthusiasts. Don't hesitate—join us and contribute to the exciting journey of creating world-class Mautic conferences! 🚀🎉

Attendees

• Ruth Cheesley
• Ricardo Freire
• Madlen Friedrich
• Sven Döring
• Favour Chibueze

Actions from previous meeting

1. @Sven Döring will create a template YouTube thumbnail which can then be bulk-created with a CSV
2. Sven has created the template for the thumbnails, still working on the CSV to pre-fill the titles for the slides and the video bumpers.
3. @Ruth Cheesley (she/her) to export from Sessionize and provide to Sven the list of speakers/sessions
4. Done!
5. Photos of speakers: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dVJbExjLPbslXgLA6UZzocbOOUT7JvhO?usp=drive_link 
6. Post an opportunity to contribute for YouTube thumbnails
7. Sven to post this today to find a contributor
8. @Ruth Cheesley (she/her) to write up a role description for a volunteer YouTube channel manager and post at https://mau.tc/get-contributing to support growing the channel, creating shorts from content, etc
9. Sven will post the opportunities on the portal and then share on Slack/forums/social etc.
10. @Sven Döring to write up a role description for a volunteer social media manager to cover project-wide and set strategy to grow our channels, and coordinate with event teams like MautiCon to find contributors who will support those events before/during/after the event
11. Sven to post on the portal and then share in the relevant places.
12. All to contribute learnings on the Google Doc so we can learn from them
13. @Ruth Cheesley (she/her) to archive off the Mautic Conference Global website before we start to refactor it for Portugal
14. Ruth asked the web team to do this - will follow up with them to get an update.

Notes from this meeting

1. Action: Ruth to add Sven to mau.tc as an admin so he can create links.
2. Action: Sven to post a call for contributors to tweak the youtube thumbnails and finalise with adding speaker images etc.
3. Action: Sven to post the YouTube Channel Manager & Social Media Manager opportunties on the portal & circulate.
4. We should send a thank you to the speakers and let them know videos will be processed soon (next few weeks) - Action: Madlen will send a thank you email to all speakers. (Note: Ruth should also do this for sponsors)
5. We should close the event down now, but still allow video replays - people will still be able to watch the videos by logging in with their account. (Done)
6. At the moment for Mautic Conference Europe Ricardo and Lenon are focusing on the event, Dominique will deal with sponsorship.
7. Ricardo shared the quote from the venue, it comes in total to 3k EUR which is the best price they've had so far - other places were a significant amount more. This is just for the venue and equipment (projector, lights, etc) - large room for 1 day, small room in U shape layout for day 2. Ruth suggested asking about whether we can have a smaller room for day 1 as well so we could run two tracks. Action: Ricardo will find out about the second room on day 1, and will make a visit to check the rooms and take photos/videos.
8. Conference venue want 100% upfront payment, Ruth asked to see the contract and whether they would negotiate to a partial payment upfront and then have the balance paid 2 months prior to the event, for example.  Action: Ricardo to get the contract from the venue
9. Catering so far has been quite expensive, around 10k euro, so we need to think about how to deal with this.
10. Ricardo suggested to buy food from a supermarket but there are concerns that this would result in some issues regarding to food safety/hygiene regulations etc.
11. Ruth/Sven suggested visiting restaurants that the team like, and seeing if they can cater for the event. Also to check local providers rather than big event caterers. Maybe approach them with a specified budget.
12. Print material etc needs to be factored in to the costs - the awards will have a separate budget.
13. We should draft this up as a budget in a spreadsheet so that we know the cost and work out what the break even is based on the number of expected paying attendees.
14. Action: Ricardo will make a shared Google sheet so we can work collaboratively to create a feasible budget.
15. Ricardo is speaking with some local venues about accommodation discounts etc - waiting on responses.
16. We need to put out a call for volunteers to help the core team with running the event: https://contribute.mautic.org/contributing-to-mautic/event-organizer/mautic-conferences#in-person-conferences - Ruth to do this.

Actions:

1. Sven to complete the YouTube thumbnail templates ready for a contributor to finalise and add speaker photos
2. Sven will make a post to call for volunteers to tweak the YouTube thumbnails
3. Sven to share the YouTube channel manager and social media manager opportunties and invite applications from interested volunteers
4. Ruth to create an account for Sven on mau.tc
5. Ruth to follow up with the web team about archiving the 2024 Global event
6. Madlen to send a thank you email to all speakers
7. Ruth to send a thank you email to all sponsors
8. Ricardo to find out from the CCB venue whether we could hold a smaller room in addition to the main auditorium on the first day, also to get a formal contract drawn so we can review the terms, and to ask if we can compromise on the payment of the amount due (eg 70% upfront and the rest 2 months before the event)
9. Ricardo and Lenon will make a visit to the venue and take videos / photos to share.
10. Ricardo will look into options for catering including approaching local restaurants, supermarket purchases, explore other catering companies.
11. Ricardo will create a shared Google Sheet in the MautiCon Europe folder on Google Drive, so we can work together on some numbers for a budget and determine the minimum ticket price / goal for sponsorship
12. Ruth to put out a call for contributors for Mautic Conference Europe lead roles.