[ONLINE] MautiCon Working Group Meeting

Attendees:

• Mohit Aghera
• Ruth Cheesley
• Rahul Shinde
• Avinash Dalvi    

Apologies:

• Surabhi Gokte

Recordings:

Video link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sYJMF8YAwJZ0CyC-0yxADLzk9YnF_HIK/view?usp=drive_link

Audio link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AIFUNJXdQoULvHJfeyBdyxMWlj1iMn01/view?usp=drive_link

Meeting notes:

Rahul has someone else who would like to join the team and will onboard him in the channel. He's going to help with venue searching and communications, checking availability and so forth.

Venue

Rahul visited some venues today but some of the decision makers are on vacation. He's met with a few new venues.

MCCIA: One floor with open spaces and classrooms and auditorium (110 capacity) but it's a bit expensive: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sMS4TMQQe3-HbNXR4cJ_HSxQ0YhflUhxcdXy7M5y0uM/edit#gid=1425552726 

Two more are waiting for details about availability and costings.

Bhau Institute: Classrooms are smaller, but they do have a lot of space and there's space on the stairs to sit if needed. Not sure about the terrace and whether we'd need a tent on the terrace. Auditorium we would book for just the time we need it for the keynotes. Food is extra. MIght not be the best option as the venue area for booths is outside on soil, we'd need to hire a tent etc. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sMS4TMQQe3-HbNXR4cJ_HSxQ0YhflUhxcdXy7M5y0uM/edit#gid=740981163

Pune University Campus: going to check, has several auditoriums and Rahul has connections where he graduated as they don't allow you to book unless you're alumni. They may be much cheaper than others.

We could ask QED42 if we can use their office space for the community sprint on the Sunday which would mean we can save money.

Question on whether we make training/workshop free for students which might help us get a discount / free venue. Agreed this would be good but maybe limit the number of spaces so that we can ensure we cover the cost of expenses (eg. food) - unless we have a sponsor that covers it entirely.

We can also promote the booths as an opportunity to hire and meet the employer.

Website

Mohit has access to the website now and he will get started on that soon. We'll get something set up in staging and go from there. Gitesh from Axelerant wants to help so the team will onboard him to help with the marketing side.

Sponsorships

As soon as we finalise the venue we'll set some targets for the sponsorship. Ruth to add the team to Hubspot to help with the sales/tracking. We could create a sponsor package for specific large-ticket items like the venue hire, food etc and have the company pay that bill directly, which means they can offset the tax.

Speakers

Founder of QED maybe, he does a lot of things with the company. We will add some names to the spreadsheet. Maybe also Muktesh. Should also consider diversity - will do some research in the team and see what we can come up with.

Brand

We will start to work on the brand and sponsor brochure this week - Mohit & Avi will work with Ruth on this.