On Tue, 30 Sept 2025 at 11:14, Daniel Gultsch <[email protected]> wrote:
> • How did you like the format of the last three summits? (Renting a > conference room in a hotel with lunch provided (in buffet style) by > the hotel) > > Sadly I only made it to the last one, and it was good - but I'd have been fine without the fancy lunch, to be honest. The lunchtime *company* was great, though, as always! > • Do you have a concrete lead for some company or organization that > could provide us with a conference room for free in the city of > Brussels? I’m not asking for vague suggestions like "maybe someone > could try to reach out to xyz" I’m asking if you personally know > someone who has a key to a room. > > As you know, I'm working on various options, paid and otherwise. > • Do we want a 1 day or 2 day summit? Last year the 'official' part of > the summit was over after 1.2 days and had we known this we could have > probably managed to squeeze it all into one day. > I'd like to stick with 2 days if we can. > • If we do a repeat of the last two (three) years (which i feel is > somewhat likely due to how difficult it is to find places that would > have us for free and because I’m under the impression that people like > the "fancy environment" with the snacks and the fancy bottles of > water) I feel somewhat strongly that we should switch to a model in > which every participant pays for their own seat (at per cost) and add > a fairly generous fee-waiver on top of it. > I’m very much in favor of keeping the Summit accessible. > (Socio)economicly speaking our community is very diverse. We have > people in our community who would not be able to come if they had to > pay the ~250 Euro the hotel charges us per person. But we also have > people in our community to whom this is a rounding error in the > overall travel+accommodation cost. (I have personally been on both > sides of this.) > The XSF notoriously doesn’t have a lot of money and efforts to change > this over the last 3 years haven’t been very successful. Switching to > a fee waiver model would allow board (or whoever) to set aside a fixed > amount and send x (where x=10 for example) applicants to the summit > for free. > I'm entirely unconvinced that the Summit offers €250 worth of value to most people. I also think the value increases the more people who are there (at least to me), and this especially includes relative newcomers and others who may well not be able to justify a €250 fee, even if they can afford it easily. (To be clear, the more people who are there /and also feel empowered and encouraged to speak up/!) If people cease to be able to come for free, then I firmly believe it lowers the value for all of us. Dave.
