Balkans/Events:2011/Sofia
based on CC work by Sweti
Contents
Overview
The third Balkans Inter-Community meet-up will take place in Sofia, Bulgaria, on June 4th-5th 2011.
Lead contributors from Balkan communities will be invited and sponsored by Mozilla Europe to participate in a 2-day workshop.
The aim of the workshop is to enable Mozilla communities in the Balkans to share and learn from each other's experience working on the Mozilla Project, improve collaboration in the future, and work on specific tasks, based on the 5 goals defined in the previous Balkan Meetup in Ljubljana. This meetup will also be an opportunity to reflect on the accomplishments, challenges, opportunities of the Balkan Mozilla communities, one year on.
The event will be followed by a public event, which will be a part of OpenCamp Sofia.
When
- Contributor Event : Saturday June 4th from 9h to 17h
- Public event: Sunday June 5th from 10h to 16h
Where
- Park-Hotel Moskva (Attention: Flash required!)
Participants
Contributors
The following Balkan communities will each be represented by 2 lead contributors:
- Albanian community [no one]
- Bosnian community [Aleksandar Savic, Nedim Zecic]
- Bulgarian community [Margarita Yordanova, Bogomil Shopov, Ognyan Kulev]
- Croatian community [no one]
- Greek community [Kostas Antonakoglou, Alfredos-Panagiotis Damkalis]
- Kosovo community [Altin Ukshini]
- Macedonian community [Taner Selim]
- Romanian community [Alexandru Szasz, Raul Malea]
- Serbian community [Oskar Ivanić, Saša Maletaški ]
- Slovenian community [Vito Smolej, Nino Vranešič]
- Turkish community [Selim Şumlu]
Mozilla Staff
- William Quiviger (France)
- Pierros Papadeas (Greece)
- Pike (Germany)
- Milos (Serbia)
- Gandalf (Poland)
- Chofmann (USA)
- Matjaž Horvat (Slovenia)
Format and Schedule
The meetup will span over 4 days:
- Day 1 (Friday): participants arrive and welcome dinner
- Day 2 (Saturday): Work day and evening Fx 5 party
- Day 3 (Sunday): Wrap-up and goals-setting and evening to rest (or to triage bugs!)
- Day 4 (Monday): departure of participants
Schedule
You can find the schedule here: Sofia schedule
Overall guiding questions and themes for discussion
Here are the over-arching questions asked during the first Balkan Meetup in Skopje that will help guide discussions:
- What are the local Mozilla communities
- How to enlarge local communities and how can people get and stay involved
- Mutual cooperation
- Promoting the Mozilla and its projects in the Balkans
- Why would one contribute to Mozilla projects
- Examine Firefox market share in the region, and work on strategies to consolidate/improve
- Share l10n experiences and promote the value of native speaking users
Talk Proposals
See here for talk proposals
Practical Info
Accommodation
- Park-Hotel Moskva:
- http://www.parkhotelmoskva.net/indexEN.htm (Attention: Flash required!)
All rooms have air-conditioning, local heating, cableTV, free Internet, free mini-bar and a luxury bathroom (with bath-tub). The breakfast is included also into the price.
Travel
Participants travelling to Sofia by train, bus, or car are asked to purchase their own travel and request reimbursement after the meetup is over.
Those travelling by plane need to coordinate their travel with William. Please contact him as soon as possible to book your flights and avoid exorbitant prices.
If you are Mozilla staff, please book your own travel and expense your travel the stand way.
All participants of the contributor event are asked to arrive in Sofia anytime on Friday June 3rd and leave Sofia on Sunday December 5th in the afternoon.
For those of you who are arriving by plane transfer from and to airport will be booked.
Everyone should fill out their exact travel details in the Balkan Meetup Sofia travel table.
From Sofia Airport
Bogo will try to pick some Mozillians from the airport. If you don't see Bogo or anyone else holding a MOZILLA sign in the arrivals hall, please turn right from arrivals room to go to the TAXI area. The taxi area looks something like this. IMPORTANT: Don't follow any taxi drivers who are WAITING for you at the arrivals room, go directly to the TAXI area (see photo). (it works 24/7).
The only taxi you MUST grab is called “OK Taxi”. The cars looks like on this photo. It's just big blue OK with 9732121 number. Warning: there are a lot of similar cars with OK sign, please read my instructions twice.
1. While you are into the car tell the driver to drive you to “Park-Hotel Moskva” . Feel free to give him my number (see contacts) if you have any troubles. 2. The price you will have to pay it will be no more that 7-10 Euro – per car. They don't accept credit cars at all. I will give you the money at the same day - please keep the receipt.
3. If you have credit card – please withdraw local currency – it's called “LEV” and the rate is 1 EURO == 1.96 LEV. The bank-machine is in the arrivals room (on your left).
4. Sharing: Please, please look at the arrivals info and share a cab with others. (see table of arrivals If you have to wait 30 min or more, please get your own cab :)
To Sofia Airport
Bogo will arrange and pay the taxi for all of you. You don't have to worry about that.
Sightseeing
Of course, you'll be very busy during the meetup but if you happen to have just a little free time and you don't mind rain and lightning, you might want to do some nice sightseeing.
You can find some nice things to do in Sofia. The metro station is in front of the hotel. You can recognize it by this sign.
The name of the station is Joliot-Curie and if you want to visit the city center, you have to take the metro to “Serdica” station. (the direstion is to 'Obelya' station).
See metro map here
The price for that ride is 1LEV (50 cents) per direction – you can get a ticket inside the metro. They don't take Euro :)
Weather
The weather in Sofia during the meetup is going to suck. Heavy rain showers. Thunder. Lightning. Not exactly ideal weather to discover the city, but ideal weather to stay indoors and discuss the future of Mozilla in the Balkans!!!
For more info, click here
Map
You can find the meetup's google map here. We'll be updating it with more points of interest soon so keep checking it.
Friday dinner
18:30 - Meet Bogo in the hotel lobby
19:00 – 22:00 Dinner and some drinks at “Lyubimoto” - “25 Parensov” street (see map)
Quick lessons in Bulgarian
- Здравей (zdravéi) — Hello
- Здрасти (zdrásti) — Hi
- Добро утро (dobró útro) — Good morning
- Добър ден (dóbər dén) — Good day
- Добър вечер (dóbər vécher) — Good evening
- Лека нощ (léka nósht) — Good night
- Довиждане (dovízhdane) — Good-bye
- Как си? (kák si) (informal) — How are you?
- Как сте? (kák sté) (formal, and also plural form) - How are you?
- Да (dá) - Yes
- Не (né) - No
- Може би (mózhé bí) - Maybe
- Какво правиш? (kakvó právish) (informal) — What are you doing?
- Какво правите? (kakvó právite) (formal, and also plural form) - What are you doing?
- Добре съм (dobré səm) — I’m fine
- Всичко (най-) хубаво (vsíchko nai-húbavo) — All the best
- Поздрави (pózdravi) — Regards
- Благодаря (blagodaryə́) (formal and informal) — Thank you
- Моля (mólia) — Please
- Моля (mólia) — You're welcome
- Извинете! (izvinéte) (formal) — Excuse me!
- Извинявай! (izviniávai) (informal) — Sorry!
- Колко е часът? (kólko e chasə́t) — What’s the time?
- Ще се видим скоро (shté sé vídim skóro) - We'll see each other soon
- Ще се видим утре (shté sé vídim útre) - We'll see each other tomorrow
- Мерси (mersi) - Thank you ; from French
- Чао (chao) - Bye ; from Italian
- Cупep (super) - Super ; (from English; note - "Super" remains the same regardless of quantity or gender)
Sponsorship policy
Mozilla Europe will cover all accommodation, food and travel expenses during the contributor event. This includes hotel expenses from June 3rd to June 5th, breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Reimbursement policy
All participants who requesting reimbursement for their expenses need to fill out the following form and send it to William (william [at] mozilla [dot] com) along with scanned copies of all their receipts.
Mozilla Europe Reimbursement Form
NB: Please make sure to get approval from William before making any purchase
Communication
- Hashtag #mozbalkans11
- Mailing list
- IRC channel #balkans
- Bi-Weekly skype conferences
Aftermath
Please go to the meetup aftermath page to find the notes of the meetup, the photos, blog posts, individual feedback and next steps.
