[AISPC] Programme

[Geert Jan de Groot]

Hi folks,

I'm waiting for Patrick, Tinka and the others to chime in on the
focus change; they have been travelling a lot and have been offline
for at least a week.

Anyway, here here is what I know about arrangements, facilities etc. 
Please see https://nsrc.org/workshops/2013/afnog/, create an account first.
Specifically, see https://nsrc.org/workshops/2013/afnog/wiki/AfnogCalendar
Please do amend/update this as we move along and administer this 
in one place only.

- The workshops run up to, and including, friday jun 14. This is outside
  the AIS-PC.

- Saturday jun 15 has been "funny hats day" where instructors, staff, and
  workshop participants, spend the one single day off we get for 
  the whole event and do the tourist bit, after a week of very intense 
  workshops (typically spending 18 hours per day) and for some, a few 
  days of intense setup work (typically also 18 hours/day, sometimes more) 
  before the workshop week.
  This is the only time the crew (friends) gets to spend some time together
  after a very intense period.
  Some organisations have historically decided to plan an event that day,
  but I really recommend against that: no attendance, no support, nothing.
  If there is a problem with the network, with equipment, then 
  there will be nobody to address it; you should be touristing, dammit!
  Keep in mind that we work our workshop attendees so they collapse on
  thursday (sometimes literally). There really isn't any energy to do 
  anything that saturday and I strongly advise against organizing anything 
  that day unless it involves suntan oil, sunglasses and funny hats.
  Funny Hats Day cannot move since a number of instructors leave 
  the next day.

- Starting sunday 16 jun, the 'tutorial' part, with parallel tracks, 
  runs till jun 17, and will be held in the same training facility of the
  workshops with a number of rooms sized for this, facilities, 'net,
  the works. By all means, plan things here as capacity allows,
  but remember we're at a facility with set sized rooms.

- Starting jun 18, the event moves to a different location for the
  'plenary' part. This will presumably be in a place with one big room.
  The exact hotel has not been decided; neither hotels have provided
  me specs on their rooms despite me asking, making planning impossible.
  Keep in mind that this means moving everything in one evening from
  the training facility to the hotel chosen in one evening. 
  keep in mind that there is significant distance between the two so this
  move is nontrivial.
  I'm not fond about this; in the past, setting things up meant working 
  till 4AM or so, and having zero (zero) tolerance for problems at the
  new location, but it's what we have to deal with.
  At the same time, I encourage you to think this trough and limit the
  amount of challenges here, seriously!

- The plenary events run till Friday 21th. When the event is over, we really
  need time to pack. I cannot remember a year where we didn't need all time
  with this till we literally step on our return plane.

- The event can run longer but attendance drops significantly after that,
  michuki has very bad experience organizing something after friday.

Just spoke to pokui who is doing his best (despite persistent travel)
to write down what he knows about the place, etc.

Now, for the AIS new content. I'm not against it, but let's not destroy
what we have and what our current attendees expect. What do we want:
- panels / keynote is out till we moved out of the training facility,
  there just isn't place to do this.
- I believe the technical content of the afnog plenary day should not 
  be lost, but that's just me (just expect a lot of disappointed folk
  if you drop this, see the current .TZ DNSsec discussion on the afnog
  list for instance!)
- AfriNIC needs it's meeting time to do policy development, so that's 
  not optional (unless Adiel says otherwise, suspect not ;-)
- Do we want the new content replace the old setup (not my preference),
  or can we do things in parallel plenary sessions? 
  Do we know if the candidate plenary hotels can host 2 rooms? 
  Does the budget allow for this?
- Do we want to move the plenary bit upwards, loosing a valuable day
  of tutorial slots?

Note that the travel distance between the training facility and 
either potential plenary hotel is significant so running things in
parallel between these locations isn't an option. 
Besides, there are equipment and staffing problems.

So, here's where I stand. What do we want to change?

GJ