EuroPython Society

Dear EuroPython community,

the EuroPython Society is happy to announce a new organizational concept that we’d like to put in place for the next EuroPython conferences: the EuroPython Workgroups.

Motivation

In the past, the EPS granted permission to use the brand to local organizers based on a set of requirements, and the local organizing team then had to run the event in collaboration with the EPS. Most of the work was centered around the local team.

This model no longer scales and doesn’t encourage the community to take part in the organization process. The workload and the financial risks of running such a big conference for the local teams is very high.

Proposed New Structure (Workgroups)

The biggest change is the introduction of permanent workgroups integrated with EPS and its activities. This change is designed to address the issues mentioned above in a way which allows our community to get more involved, while at the same time reducing the risk and work load on individual teams.

Workgroups will be coordinated by the EuroPython Society board based on the community feedback and proposals, from their definition and creation to their implementation.

The key workgroups we have identified so far are:

• Conference Administration (contracts, venue contact, ticket support, satellite conferences, legal support, insurance, licensing)
• Finance (budget, controlling, accounting, billing, invoicing, taxes, payment system administration, Treasurer needs be part of this WG)
• Sponsors (sponsor contacts, sponsor logistics, room/booth assignment, recruiting session, jobs fair, exhibit hall, startup row)
• Communications (press, community relations, diversity/outreach/CoC, CoC contact, announcements, social media, attendee tools, volunteer coordination, mailing lists)
• Support (helpdesk, attendee support contact, visa help, travel management, chat support for attendees)
• Financial Aid (setup, grant selection, aid organisation)
• Marketing/Design (brochures, advertisements, banners, flyers, travel guide, t-shirts, lanyards, badges, panels, logo)
• Program (talk selection, scheduling, session chairs, sprint/openspace/keynote/lightning talks/poster session organization, Young Coders session, Python for Teachers)
• Web (web site support, ticket system, administration, backups, payment system integration, hosting, chat support for attendees)
• Media (video recording, live streaming, live translations, uploads to YouTube and archive.org)
• On-site Team (on-site support, local contact, help with venue selection, help with catering selection, partner program, social events, buddy program, internet access, venue contact, catering contact, on-site logistics)

All of these workgroups, except for the On-site Team, will remain active when changing location. We expect to keep institutional knowledge within the organization and make transitions to new locations easier by using this approach.

The EuroPython Society collects and reviews the applications to each workgroup. The EPS board will then vote on the chair and a set of permanent workgroup members with (workgroup internal) voting rights and then have the workgroup chair appoint additional (non-voting) members as necessary.

Workgroups will be confirmed/reestablished by board vote every year, this allows non-voting members to become voting members in the following year.

Workgroups and board will update, coordinate and plan activities on a regular basis. While every workgroup will be responsible for its own coordination and establish a workflow that best fits its needs, we expect all workgroups to integrate and interact with other workgroups to create a productive work environment.

To simplify and speed up the workgroup setup, we will create a set of workgroup guidelines which aim at collecting the institutional knowledge gathered over the years. We will put these guidelines up for comment in the coming weeks.

Call for Volunteers

Please help us build EuroPython and keep making it better and better every year.

If you want to help, please apply for one or more workgroups which you feel match your interests and experience. If you’d like to help, but don’t have enough experience, yet are willing to learn, please apply as well.

To apply please send an email to board@europython.eu with your details, the motivation for applying (basically why and how you think you could help) and the workgroup(s) you’d like to apply for.

Just to clarify: We will issue a separate Call for Participation (CFP) for the On-site Team, so you don’t need to apply for this workgroup before we have selected an On-site Team.

Thank you,
–
EuroPython Society

EuroPython 2014 was a great event and we’d like to learn from you how to make EuroPython 2015 even better. If you attended EuroPython 2014, please take a few moments and fill out our feedback form:

EuroPython 2014 Feedback Form

We will leave the feedback form online for another two weeks and then use the information as basis for the work on EuroPython 2015 and also post a summary of the multiple choice questions (not the comments to protect your privacy) on our website. Many thanks in advance.

Helping with EuroPython 2015

If you would like to help with EuroPython 2015, we invite you to join the EuroPython Society. Membership is free. Just go to our application page and enter your details.

In the coming months, we will start the discussions about the new work group model we’ve announced at the conference.

Enjoy,
–
EuroPython Society

Thank you for your suggestion. In our General Assembly at EuroPython 2014 we have just voted on updating the bylaws to also use the “EPS” abbreviation.

We will update the website in the coming days.

Enjoy,
–
EuroPython Society

Now that EuroPython 2014 is almost over, we would like to say a

BIG THANK YOU

to the local organizers in Berlin! You did a wonderful job with the conference organization.

Please provide feedback

Going forward, we would like to ask all EuroPython attendees to send us your feedback for EuroPython 2014, so we can use this information to plan for EuroPython 2015.

Please use our

EuroPython 2014 Feedback Form

for sending us your feedback.

Helping with EuroPython 2015

If you would like to help with EuroPython 2015, we invite you to join the EuroPython Society. Membership is free. Just go to our application page and enter your details.

In the coming months, we will start the discussions about the new work group model we’ve announced here at the conference.

Thanks to all EuroPython attendees

Thank you very much for attending and have a safe trip home.

We’re all looking forward to seeing you again for EuroPython 2015.

Enjoy,
–
EuroPython Society

We are having three EuroPython Society (EPS) sessions today at EuroPython 2014. They are all held in room B09.

• Presenting the EPS at 16:00 CEST

• EPS General Assembly at 16:30 CEST

• New work group approach for EuroPython 2015. at 17:00 CEST

All EuroPython attendees are invited to join in to these sessions and to become EuroPython Society members.

If you would like to support the EuroPython Society and want to sign up for membership, please visit our membership application form.

Membership is free and we’d like to get as many EuroPython attendees signed up as members as possible, because the EuroPython conference series is all about its attendees.

Enjoy,
–
EuroPython Society

At this year’s General Assembly we will vote in a new board of the EuroPython Society.

List of Board Candidates

The EPS bylaws require one chair and 2 - 6 board members. The following members from the current board have stated their willingness to continue working on the board. We are presenting them here (in alphabetical order).

Jacob Hallén

Facilitator

Jacob is a Python veteran with 15 years of Python programming. He also is PSF member, member of the PyPy team and a former EuroPython organiser. He uses Python for multiple non-profit projects as well as for development of commercial applications.

At Open End, Python is used for a collaborative task manager. At Sotospeak, Python serves in the backend of an application providing language courses on the mobile phone.

When not working with Python, Jacob enjoys kayaking.

Marc-André Lemburg

Pythonista / CEO / Coach / Consultant

Marc-Andre is the CEO and founder of eGenix.com, a Python-focused project and consulting company based in Germany. He has a degree in mathematics from the University of Düsseldorf. His work with and for Python started in Winter 1993/1994. He became Python Core Developer in 1997. In 1999, he designed and implemented the Unicode support in Python and continued to maintain the Python Unicode implementation for more than a decade. Marc-Andre is a founding member of the Python Software Foundation (PSF) and has served on the PSF Board several times. He is the author of the well-known Python “mx” Extensions, e.g. mxTextTools, mxDateTime and mxODBC, which are now distributed and maintained through eGenix.com.

In 2002, Marc-Andre was on the executive committee to run the first EuroPython conference in Charleroi, Belgium. He also co-organized the second EuroPython 2003 conference. Since then, he has attended every single EuroPython conference and continued being involved in the workings of the conference organization.

In 2012, he was elected as board member of the EuroPython Society (EPS) which organizes the EuroPython conference series. He enjoyed the last two years working with the EPS board members on steering the EuroPython conference to new organizational structures and believes that the new model will make it possible to sustain the continued growth while maintaining the EuroPython spirit and fun aspect of the conference.

Anthon van der Neut            

Consultant / Software Engineering Manager

He has been working with Python on a professional basis since 1998, after having been introduced to the language a few years earlier while working in Amsterdam. Since 2007 he maintains the C implementation of OrderedDict he developed, used by those pythonistas for whom a Pure Python implementation is not fast enough. He has spoken at and visited PyCon and visited several EuroPythons after moving back to Europe.

He has managed software development in companies across 3 continents, primarily oriented at 3D resp. 2D computer graphics and media management software. This included managing the Commotion development team, then used at ILM for rotoscoping Star Wars episodes I-III.

He was quaestor on the board of the student society Augustinus while studying Mathematics, Japanese and Linguistics in Leiden. He was founding chairman of the Dutch 68000 user group (back in 1984 when that processor was state-of-the-art) and published about his work on how to hook up a floating point coprocessor in his Atari ST, as well as on how to adapt the libraries of Modula-2 to use it.

More recently he has managed the website and member administration of his local karate-club.

When not working on Python, but still at the computer, he can be found answering questions on the Unix & Linux resp. Ebooks StackExchange sites, or refreshing his math skills at Khan Academy where he is one of the few to hold the coveted Tesla badge.

When detached from his keyboard, he can be found cooking for his teenage daughter or practising karate.

He joined the EPS as he likes to work with like minded people in a multicultural environment promoting his favourite programming language.

Fabio Pliger

Software Engineer / Trainer / Consultant

Fabio currently works as a software engineer, trainer and consultant. He has a degree in Computer Science from the University of Verona, Italy. Has started working with Python on a professional basis since 2003 building different kind of tools and projects mainly for pharmaceutical companies. In 2007, he co-founded his own software and consulting company focused at the pharmaceutical industry market, that he left in 2013.

He has been the chairman of the board of the EuroPython Society since 2012 trying to help the Society maintain the series of successful conference, improve it’s interaction with the community, scale as numbers grow and keep the Conference spirit of fun, openness and respect that is a deep trait of the EuroPython conference. He has been a co-organizer of the EuroPython Conference series for the 2011, 2012 and 2013 editions in Florence.

In 2007, he co-founded the Python Italia Association, a non-profit organization devoted to advance open source technology related to the Python programming language in Italy. As result of this he has been a co-organizer of the PyCon Italia conference in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2014.

He joined the EPS because he loves the social interaction, community and to help promote his favorite programming language.

Outside the Python community Fabio loves to spend time with his family, friends, cooking and traveling.

Vicky Twomey-Lee

Software Engineer / Tech event Organiser

She currently organises Python Ireland monthly events as well as being on its committee. She was the chair of PyCon Ireland from 2010 to 2013.

She is now involved in diversity initiatives in Python and PyCon Ireland, founded PyLadies Dublin which launched in October 2013 during PyCon Ireland, and is currently organiser of its monthly meetups. Vicky has been a member of PSF since 2012.

She joined EPS as board member to learn about and help local organisers to run EuroPython.

Outside of Python community, she organises female-friendly adult workshops to encourage diversity in the tech area via Coding Grace which she co-founded with other developers based in Dublin, Ireland. She also co-founded and co-organise community game jams called Global GameCraft bringing game enthusiasts, hobbyists, developers as well as those in the games industry (big and small) to make games in one day, play each others games at the end of it and make new connections.

Want to run as candidate ?

More candidates from the EPS membership are welcome. Please write to board@europython-society.org to get your name added to the list of candidates. We will keep this posting updated with all new candidates.

What does the EPS Board do ?

The EPS board runs the day-to-day business of the EuroPython Society. It is allowed to enter contracts for the society and handle any issues that have not been otherwise regulated in the bylaws or by the General Assembly. Most business is handled by email on the board mailing list, board meetings are usually run as phone conference calls.

Enjoy,
–
EuroPython Society

The EuroPython Society is pleased to announce that we have received the CTM registration for our “EuroPython” word mark in Europe.

Please see the EU Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) trademark page for details:

    https://oami.europa.eu/eSearch/#details/trademarks/012636635

The EuroPython Society has owned the trademark since its inception in 2004 on a first use basis, but we believe that by registering the word mark, we are helping to protect the IP rights for the growing numbers of assets of the Python community.

Since owning a trademark also requires actively protecting it in order not to lose the rights to the mark, we have set up a trademark policy for the mark:

    http://www.europython-society.org/trademarks

If you have questions regarding the trademark or its use, please write to board@europython-society.org.

Enjoy,
–
EuroPython Society

We are pleased to welcome all new EuroPython Society (EPS) members and would like to officially invite you to attend this year’s EPS General Assembly (GA), which we will run as in-person meeting at the upcoming EuroPython Conference 2014 in Berlin.

Place of the General Assembly meeting:

We will meet in room B09 at 16:30 CEST on Thursday, July 24, 2014.

There will be a talk presenting the EPS at 16:00 CEST in the same room, and another one following the General Assembly at 17:00 CEST presenting the new work group approach we will use for organizing EuroPython 2015. You may want to attend those talks as well.

General Assembly Agenda

The agenda contents for the assembly is defined by the EPS bylaws. We are planning to use the following structure:

• Opening of the meeting

• Selection of meeting chairman, secretary and 2 checkers of the minutes

• Motion establishing the timeliness of the call to the meeting

• Presentation of the annual report and annual accounts by the board

• Presentation of the report of the auditor

• Discharge from liability for the board

• Election of members of the board

• Election of chairman of the board

• Determination of the size of the board for the period until the next annual meeting of the General Assembly

• Election of one auditor and one replacement. The auditor does not have to be certified in any way and is normally selected among the members of the society.

• The optional election of a nomination committee for the next annual meeting of the General Assembly

• Presentation of a budget by the outgoing board.

• Acceptance of budget and decision on membership fees for the upcoming year

• Propositions from the board

• Motions from the members

• General discussion

• Closing of the meeting

Election of the members of the board

The EPS bylaws limit the number of board members to one chair and 2 - 6 directors. The following directors from the current board are running again for board for the next term (in alphabetical order):

• Jacob Hallén

• Marc-André Lemburg

• Anthon van der Neut

• Fabio Pliger

• Vicky Twomey-Lee

We will post more detailed information about the above candidates in a separate blog post.

All members of the EPS are free to nominate or self nominate board members. Please write to board@europython-society.org no later than Friday, July 18 2014, if you want to run for board. We will then include you in the list we’ll have in the final announcement before the GA.

Propositions from the board

The board would like to amend the EPS bylaws with the following changes:

Expanding the scope of EPS membership to EuroPython attendees

The bylaws currently state:

4. Membership is open to individuals wishing to participate in the organising of a EuroPython conference.

Proposed new text:

4. Membership is open to individuals who have attended a EuroPython conference, or are wishing to participate in the organising of a EuroPython conference.

Changing the official abbreviations for the EPS to “EPS”

The bylaws currently use the abbreviation “EP” for the EuroPython Society. Since this abbreviation is also used for the EuroPython conference, we would like to make “EPS” the official abbreviation for the EuroPython Society.

The bylaws currently state:

1. The name of the society is “The EuroPython Society”, abbreviated “EP”.

Proposed bylaws change:

1. The name of the society is “The EuroPython Society”, abbreviated “EPS”.

including changing the abbreviation throughout the bylaws text to read “EPS”.

The bylaws allow for additional propositions to be announced up until 5 days before the GA, so the above list is not necessarily the final list.

Motions from the members

EPS members are entitled to suggest motions to be voted on at the GA. The bylaws require any such motions to be announced at least 5 days before the GA. If you would like to propose a motion, please send it to board@europython-society.org no later than Friday, July 18 2014.

Enjoy,
–
EuroPython Society

We would like to invite all EuroPython attendees to become a member of the EuroPython Society (EPS).

Since we regard the EPS as representation of the EuroPython attendees, working hard to make every single EuroPython conference a professional, high quality and fun event.

If you have suggestions for enhancements, changes or anything we could do to make EuroPython an even better event, please contact us at board@europython-society.org.

You can sign up as a Member via the following form:     

        http://www.europython-society.org/application

Deadline is Tuesday 22nd, Midday (CET).

Note: Our bylaws do require members to be voted in by the board and because this hasn’t been done in the past, the new board is working towards getting all EuroPython attendees who want to have official voting rights in the EPS General Assembly signed up as EPS members.

Enjoy,
—
EuroPython Society