Call For Organizers: Online Scala Organisers Summit

This one goes out to the:

  1. Scala meetup organizers

  2. Scala conference organizers

  3. ScalaBridge organizers

  4. Everyone who organizes the Scala community in any regard

  5. All that would like to become one

At the Scala Center we are getting a lot of calls with the following questions:

  • My conference is in (for example) May, should I postpone it?

  • Should we move our meetups online, does it defeat the purpose?

  • We would like to have an online conference, where do I start?

  • We postponed the conference to October, but there are now 5 others, how do we not step on each other’s toes? Will these measures even be done by October…

  • And so forth

We don’t have the answers, but we can find out together, so here’s what we can propose:

Let’s set up an Online Scala Organizers Summit to share our concerns and experiences and figure out what is the best path forward.

If you would like to participate, please fill in these 2 things:

  1. Doodle if you’d like to participate.
  2. Form with your contact info

I’ve chosen timeslot 3 PM - 5 PM as it can fit both PTS (6 AM - 8 AM) and JST (11 PM - 1 AM) - not ideal, but worked so far when I had such calls.

We are committed to helping out on this matter to the best of our capacities, more updates coming soon.

Please comment below for more suggestions.

8 Likes

Awesome idea! Just filled in the form etc.

Would love to volunteer my time and experience to help with this inititative and be more involved with the Scala Center so please let me know how I can help.

Many thanks.

Regards
Salar

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Excellent and timely idea – I’m in, and we should talk about the just-happened NE Scala, which wound up accidentally being the proof of concept for online conferences…

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Agreed, that is the info “coming soon” I was being vague about. Currently speaking with NE Scala crew and waiting on final write-up on their side. They really did an incredible job the very last second, I am eternally impressed. But we need to give them a sec to gather their thoughts and let us know.

(@jducoeur are you involved with NE Scala? I didn’t know until after I wrote this message, thus this edit)

That’s great Darja.

Thanks for the initiative.

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Yes – I was one of the core ~4 people this year, and will be chairing it next year. NE Scala is a coproduction of the Boston, NYC and Philly Scala communities; since I run Boston these days, I’m deeply involved. (And because of that, I’m a board member of the little LLC that we recently set up to deal with the money.)

Note that we’ve already written up our notes – had that done within 24 hours of it ending, actually, since we wanted to get it written down while it was all fresh. My writeup can be found on my Scala blog, and Ryan’s debrief can be found in this gist.

1 Like

This is a fantastic initiative, thanks for organizing this.

I’m one of the organizers of Scala Up North, currently planned for October in Ottawa, Ontario.

I’d love to participate, already entered my availability on the Doodle.

2 Likes

Thank you Daria for the initiative!

We’ve decided to postpone the stationary Scalar-workshop edition until October, though of course nobody knows what the situation then will be. But the choice was simple, we could either loose all the money we paid to the venue or postpone the event (which can simply mean loosing the money at a later date :wink: ).

We’ve also started planning Scalar online right away (in May), maybe you saw the announcement. It’s still in quite early stages, and especially given Daria’s initiative, we’ll be happy to join forces with others.

There’s also Oli’s Scala Lovely Day in April. We definitely won’t be bored! :slight_smile:

By the way, we were really impressed by the writeup after NE-Scala - very useful - thanks @jducoeur & Ryan! :slight_smile:

Adam

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Dear Organisers,

(I sent an email to all addresses submitted to this form, with the same text as below, if you are participating please make sure your address is register there, that is the only way I can contact you to share the Zoom link)

We found the date & time for the Organisers summit:

  • Thursday 26th March, 3-5 PM CET (please convert to your timezone).

  • Proposed agenda here link . It is based on your comments & limitations of time (2h) and number of people (~30).

  • I will send the Zoom link 15 minutes before the meeting.

For those that cannot join, we will share the notes, and include you in the following discussions.

Thank you very much for your response, comments, and appreciation!!

Please note:

  1. This is the first meeting, not all questions or concerns will be answered - but if we come up with a structure & means to continue the conversation, we can consider this Summit a success.

  2. I will be leading the discussion to the best of my capability, this includes moderation.

  3. I ask you for patience and support given the numerous topics, present participants, including many different cultural backgrounds and styles of communication.

Stay safe and healthy <3

Darja

4 Likes

Hi @darja, thank you for setting this up!

As one of the organizers of Scala Italy, I’m very interested in the topics discussed here.
I won’t be able to attend the call today, but I’m looking forward to reading the notes.

As per Scala Italy, we were planning to hold it mid-September in Milan, but given the situation we put our efforts on pause, to see how the situation develops. Even in the case Italy would be fine by September, we’re an international conference, so it wouldn’t make sense to host a physical event if there’s a chance that many other countries will still be on lockdown (or any significant limitation to travels)

Looking forward to the follow up discussion!

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I am truly happy to report that we (~30) organizers, teachers & more had a very fruitful 2h summit, we created the notes + collected many useful links!

More info coming very soon!

Thank you everyone who joined and everyone who will!

4 Likes

2nd Online Organisers Summit will be collocated with ScalaLove conference, 13th Feb (tomorrow) at 8:30 AM PST / 5.30 PM CET.

If you are interested to join, please fill in this form and I will send you an invite with the Zoom link to join.

Please read more about the 1st Summit, that took place last March.

Hope to see you!