Hello Fellow European Pythonistas, This year's EuroPython in Berlin was a grat event, enjoyed by over 1000 Pythonistas and the biggest EP to date.
What most of us would have been unaware of was that under the surface, there had been major problems with relations between the EuroPython Society (EPS) board and those heading up the local organising team. These problems could be serious enough to put the future of EuroPython itself at risk and already have resulted in plans for a repeat of EuroPython 2014 Berlin in 2015 being abandoned. Now I (John Pinner) like many others feel passionately about our Python community, and this is part of the problem : people throw themselves into organising our events, put in *lots* of work, and don't necessarily see the bigger picture : constructive criticism may not be taken, or given, as intended. Then relationships deteriorate and positions get entrenched, this was apparent (to me, I don't know about anyone else) at the EPS General Assembly in Berlin. Believe me, I have been involved in voluntary organisations for over 30 years, and this is common and all the more sad as it stems from the same basic passion and desire to serve the community. As someone who has been involved in EuroPython from the early days, and a past organiser, I don't wish to see the current problems continue and put the future of EuroPython at risk. I don't think it's too late to do something about it. PyCon UK 2014 starts tomorrow in Coventry, and quite a few EuroPython fans will be attending, so this is an opportunity to join together and see if we can resolve some of these problems. This is quite appropriate as, for sad historical reasons (which we have learnt from and put behind us, let's do the same on a much smaller scale for EuroPython) Coventry is the City of Reconciliation So I'm setting up a "EuroPython Reboot" meeting at PyCon UK 2014, at 11:00am local time (I believe that's 10:00am European time). Some of us will be able to attend this meeting in person, for those who cannot, we'll set up a video call on either https://appear.in/epreboot or Google hangout. I'll put this up on the PyCon UK wiki at http://pyconuk.net/EuropythonReboot and when we finalise the details, they'll be there. One thing I will stress, this is my idea as an individual who cares about the future of EuroPython, it is *not* being done at the behest of, or under the influence of, either the Berlin organisers or the EPS Board. If you too care about EuroPython, please join us at this meeting. Thanks, John -- _______________________________________________ python-uk mailing list python-uk@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-uk
