Oxford University IT Support Staff Group

Conference Planning Meeting

DRAFT Minutes of meeting held at 10:30 in the Institute of Archaeology on Wednesday 23rd March 2005


Present:

Jeremy Worth, Jane Littlehales, Natasha Heaton, Neil Jefferies, Malcolm Austen, Ian Miller, John Ireland, Tony Brett, Andrew Slater, Simon Thomson.

1. Apologies

Katherine Craddock, Nikki Cutler, Niall Hedderley.

2. Minutes

Not available as Nikki has been off sick.

3. Finances

Jeremy has a spreadsheet 'in progress'. The total cost of the conference is estimated at £11k (+/-£1k). If we get 140 attenders at £25/head, our reserve will dwindle to about £1k. After some discussion, it was agree to raise the delegate costs to £35 this year. This comes partly as a result of St Catz being more expensive (up 20%) than Keble but also partly because the subsidy from the annual IT Suppliers Exhibition income has been static and not risen with inflation.

4. Conference Lunch

Tony is investigating the menu and the costs.

5. Evening Reception

The University Club is not available, so we will aim to stay at St Catz. The cost quoted (£19/head) seems expensive and is probably for a 'full meal' buffet rather than 'substantial canapes' arrangement that we would like. It was agreed that we [Jeremy/Tony] should ask what they could do for £10/head.

Wine – estimated need for 70 bottles on a sale or return basis. £12/bottle seems a lot for house wine. [Jeremy/Tony] What corkage would they charge if we supply our own?

6. Main Venue Details

The venue has been confirmed but we need to establish what the deadlines are for giving them final numbers for everything. [Nikki]

The main theatre will seat 208, increasing to 250 with extra side seating.

Workshop Rooms: A and B can accommodate 50 each; E & F can accommodate 55 each; D is a 'Board Room'.

We can book the 'Lodge Seminar Rooms' if we need them – capacity 4x25 or 2x55.

[Nikki] We should establish which rooms are wheelchair accessible.

7. Plenary Sessions

7a Apple

OK. They want to know just what we want. Storage? Apple have product in several areas and they have several customers within the University. We really want something with some “whizzy sparkle”, maybe some goodies, and perhaps an exhibit in the coffee area.

They could do a workshop too – a complete Mac set-up & install walk-through would be good – covering OS/X server and Windows client? “heterogeneous” was suggested as the buzz-word.

7b Microsoft

Ben Smith is booked. We are paying his flight (~£2k) [Jane will sort out the request for payment of his air fare] and 3 nights in a college room. [Andrew will contact James about this.]

We should avoid billing him as “Microsoft”, he will be speaking as a security expert in his own right, not as a company representative.

Suggested titles:
plenary – Security today, 2010 and 2015
workshop – Building high-security networks

7c OUCS

Lou – OUCS & the future – talking about the new VC's vision.

8. Workshops

We need to start collecting exact titles and bibliographies.

8a. Apple Workshop – ok [JW]

8b. Open Source, Randy Metcalfe – ok [JL]

8c. Content Management Systems, Squiz – would be specific to their product [JW]

8d. Libraries, Google – ok, content may depend on NDAs [NJ]

8e. Building High Security Networks, Ben Smith – ok [AS]

8f. Network Storage, Tim Shaw – ok [TB]

8g. Super-computing, Jon Lockley/Steven Young – no contact yet [TB]

8h Single Sign-on Systems (subtitle? Kerberising your service), Ray Miller – semi-willing, answer by end of next week (1 Apr!) [TB]

8i. Portal Update and Uses – uncertain [TB]

8j. FoI/DPA – certainly on, Niall Hedderley may do it himself [NH]

8k.Networking Made Easy, John Ireland – agreed [JI]

8l. Dealing with End-Users, Katherine Craddock – ok [KC]

8m. Firewalls, Securing Networks, Steve Kersley – will decide in a week (1 Apr again!) - title needs to change to separate it from 8e. [JW]

8n. Wireless Networking Implementation, Olliver Gorwitts – ok if funding for the project is confirmed! [KC]

8o. ISIDORE for Colleges – poor title, being progressed [JW]+

9. Additional Workshop ideas

Software licencing – Randy or Stuart Yeates – Tony will follow it up

VLE – Tony will follow it up

Linux Flavours (Which Linux?) - Randy maybe – Jane will follow it up

HERA

10. Conference Website

[Malcolm] to progress this soon – skeleton to be ready for the next meeting.

11. Registration

Open: Mon 2 May – close: Fri 27 May (but don;'t actually do it until the morning of Tue 31st).

How should we handle late bookings? – an extra charge perhaps? [Discussion deferred to next meeting.]
N.B. Jeremy must be the only authority for acceptance of late bookings.

Should we pre-register speakers? Various thoughts were put forward! [Discussion deferred to next meeting.]

12. Question Time panel

There may be lots of questions about the VCs new ITWWG – but then there might not be if no one has heard of it by then! There probably won;t be any real news available by the time of the conference.

Suggestions:
[Transition Project WG people – possibly the VC or Bill MacMillan]
Nigel Rudgewick-Brown
Paul Jeffreys
Dave Price
Head of Libraries
Joanna Ashbourn (IT Fellow @ St Cross & CITUG Chair)
Pete Biggs

13. Review (Conference Past)

Tony has spoken with Gerard. Short bits from each past (& present) ITSSG chair are planned.

It was agreed we should fit this into the schedule between the Panel Session and the buffet.

14. AOB

All covered above.

15. Date and venue of the next meeting

Friday 8th April at 10:30 – venue OUCS, Conference Room B.

-- draft -- Malcolm, 4 April 2005.