stuff we get to do, the better. Right, but this talk is different. This talk is about how we actually run the event. And it's focusing on next year, so basically I'm just going to tell you a bit how we work, what we do, how the work groups work, how you can help if you want to help. So first about the EPS and basically how everything came to be.

EPS is the organisation that's running EuroPython and this year for the first time actually we are actually running everything, so we're doing the ticket sales, we're doing the sponsorship sales, so everything runs through the EPS and that has been a bit like a bumpy ride

this year, this is also the reason why we had the ticket sales start rather late. But we managed and you can see these conferences working, so this worked out and next year we have learned and we will do better and probably start earlier. So the EPS was founded in 2004 in Göteborg in Sweden, initially it just managed the EuroPython

location selection, did not actually do the organisation, the organisation was done by local teams, then in 2014 we then switched to a different set up, or after 2014 we

switched to a different set up, we started this work group concept and we decided to build everything in a way that we can all work remotely, which greatly improves things and makes things more stable, because unlike with the switches that we had before, from one location to the next where the on-site team was then also the local team,

we had a complete switch of teams between locations, there is next to no loss of institutional knowledge, so we all know how things work, we don't have to teach the complete team every single time and it's much easier that way.

So what does the EPS do? It runs EuroPython conference, it provides support for the European Python community and it protects the trademarks. We work using work groups, so what we do is we have basically split the tasks that

we have, for example we have a sponsor work group, we have a communications work group, one for administration, one for doing financial aid, one for doing the programme, I'm going to have a long list later on. We also intended to use

this model to take away the financial risk from the local teams, basically what happens now is that the EPS has the full risk, so there are no local teams anymore. All we need to do is we need to find local accountant, which we're going to start earlier for the next one, to deal with the taxes because we had

huge issues, we started looking for accountants in January and then we found one eventually I think in March it was and then we started the process of registering for VAT and it took until June until we actually got the number, which is kind of strange because we want to pay taxes, right, so it's not like

someone wants money from, someone is, or we want money from someone, so it's kind of strange, yes. So how does the EPS work? We have a board, we have work groups, we have members of course. The board members are typically also very much involved in the work groups, usually they're chairs of

work groups. The work group members don't have to be EPS members but of course we ask them to be EPS members, it's very easy to become an EPS member, you just apply and then we have to vote you in to actually become EPS members and all the EuroPython attendees have the possibility to become

your EPS member and also we have opened up this to basically everyone in Europe. So how did EuroPython develop? It started in 2002, we started with 250 attendees, very small number in Charleroi but we did have all the,

like we had Guido there, we had lots of core developers there so it was a really, really nice lineup and then over the years we grew, we grew, we started to hit 1000, we went a bit above 1000 and then for some reason at 1100 you can see here it kind of stopped which is okay because this is a

nice size, right? So we're not like a company that always wants to grow endlessly and so I think this is perfect. So I drew up this slide here with an ideal timeline so this is how we think it should work. Of

course in reality it doesn't work like that so yeah. So we have an RFP process, RFP I don't know if you know it's kind of like a commercial process when you try to procure something, you ask vendors to send in

proposals or bids for whatever you want from them, in this case we want a conference centre, we want a caterer and we want to run a conference there and so we go to the conference venues and the caterers and then ask them for bids. This we've done for this year for the first time, it went extremely well so we're going to do it again. Then of course

once you know where you'll probably be going, a few locations, then you start contacting local teams because we don't want to step on anyone's toes, we don't want to have conflicts with local conferences. And then we go ahead and do all the setups, so we need

to do the website, we need to set up all the tickets and then get the taxes working of course, start the ticket sales, try to publish the schedule a bit early, this year we were really late with the schedule and of course then in July we usually have the conference.

So how does the work group structure work? We usually have one chair per work group, sometimes two chairs, the programme work group I think has two chairs, so it's Alexander, he's not here and Alex. And then of course you have work group members,

sometimes we do voting, we don't do much voting, so it's just say yes or no and then that's it, decision is made. If no one speaks up then the chair decides, so it's that simple.

We do have a problem with inactive work group members, so sometimes people sign up, maybe do one or two things and then basically drop off the face of the earth and in the past we left them in the work groups, what we do now is rather soon

we just kick them from the work groups because we don't want the situation to happen that they appear later on the list of the teams because it basically makes it look like there are lots and lots of members in that work group, we don't need extra help, so it's basically a wrong impression that we generate

and we also don't want the people who actually do work to basically be put off by having people on that list who don't do work. So these are the work groups, I have two pages here for work groups, so we have an administration work group for basically doing the contracts, making sure that

the work members have signed up, we have a finance one which should be obvious, managers finances, sponsors is responsible for managing all the sponsors, so if you want to help with that for example you have to do lots and lots of emails, Sylvia will know, you can ask her, she has been doing a lot of that for this year, then we have communications, we need more help with that, communications

is about public communication, so writing blog posts, tweets, monitoring all the channels and so on, support is for helping the attendees, so managing Jules did that, for helping the attendees on the help desk, for basically

making sure that here on site attendees are helped with and we organise everything that has to do with attendees. We have a financial aid work group which does the whole financial aid process, so we have a budget and then they do a call and then they have a selection process in place, have to decide who gets what and then they

also have to manage how the actual refunding works for the financial aid. Then we have a marketing and design group which is in charge of basically managing all the designs. What we have done in the past is we tried to do this ourselves, it didn't work so we got a designer, so now we have a good designer and she does most of

the design work for us and then we basically just make sure that everything gets ordered correctly from various vendors that we have now identified, so it's a lot easier than before. We have a programme work group which is in charge of all the scheduling, all the talks, does all the talk, the speaker interaction. This is also a

lot of work, it's similar to the sponsors but a little different, so speakers always have special requests and they come back to you with lots and lots of questions. We have a web work group which Artur was mostly doing this year, so this is about managing the website,

improving it, adding new features and so on. We have an on-site team which are basically just people that happen to be in the location where we run the conference and they would like to help us. We don't have a lot of people in there, same case again, lots of people sign

up but not really many do anything, so we had, where is Doug? He's not here. He was mainly helping us with that and Mark Smith, he's not here either, plus a few others. Then we have a media team. The media team

currently is just a year and he's not here and he couldn't attend the conference. So essentially the media team is in charge of managing all the video recording and all these things, so basically I did this this year to make sure that everything works. And then we have Code of Conduct work group which is a special work group because it has a different set up.

You cannot apply for this. We have to basically select the people and we always have two women and two men in that group so that we can cover everything and it works well. Right, so that's it for the work groups. The way we work together is

mostly by mailing lists. Well, actually a lot of decisions are made on the Telegram groups as well because it's fun, it's much faster, it's not so much email to read. We use Google Docs a lot, spreadsheets and so on for management. We have a wiki but it doesn't work. Unfortunately the wiki

provider shut down a couple of months ago so basically the wiki is offline now. There's a lot of stuff in that wiki. We need to get it up and running again somehow. Something that's important to know if you're chairing a work group, you're actually responsible for what's

happening in that work group. So if your work group members don't deliver, then we beat you on the head because you have to deliver. So essentially because when you run a conference there are fixed deadlines. It's just a matter of fact. So we cannot extend those deadlines

and then someone has to do the work. And if you're chairing one of these then so that you know what you're getting into. So any questions? We have minus 17 seconds left.

If you want to sign up, you go to the website. Let me just quickly go to the website. Over here, Europe, Iceland Society and then you say work group. Okay. So let me see. Let's try it like this

maybe. Ah, that's good. Excellent. So you go here, Europe, Iceland work groups. You click on it. Something should happen, provide the Wi-Fi works. Yes. And then it has some

explanations of what the various work groups do in more detail than what I just mentioned. The setup, everything and then down here, down here you enter your details. I don't know why it says

obligatory but anyway, you get the idea, right? Yes. So you select the work groups that you want to sign up for. You provide a bit of detail about how much work you can input. This is

weird. French as well. And then you write here some motivation and so on so that we know what you actually want to do, how much you want to contribute and then this goes to a spreadsheet and then every now and then we have a look at that spreadsheet and then we

contact you and sign you up. So that's how it works. Good. Thank you. So now the boring part, the general assembly. You can stay, of course. One more question. Okay. The way that it

works is by this RFP process. So what you do is you, well, we have a list of locations, a list of venues that we contact where we explicitly send the RFP to but we also want to this year we also want to do it in a more

public way so that venues can actually come to the website and then just ask for the material and then we send it and then they can enter a bid as well. So if you have, if you would like to see the conference in your city or in your country, then it would be great if you could just send

us an email with possible venue details, venue locations. So we need at least a venue that can hold like 1,400 people. They have to have a caterer. They have to be available in July. And it's, we also look at

things like for example connectivity whether the city is easy to reach by plane, whether it's affordable. We prefer to do things in places which are also like have like a touristic kind of touch to it because it makes it more interesting for people to

come. So those are the criteria that we have. And of course costs, right? So some places are just extremely expensive we cannot afford. Right, that's it. Thank you.