We had a great time in Brussels for the First Satellite Meeting last weekend (Dec. 15-16).
The webteam could meet in person for only the second time after AGM and start discussing future projects and extensions.
Then we could meet four new talented webmasters who, for a start, will be helping us in refining and promoting ESN Satellite in Europe. They are Diogo Silveira Botelho from ESN Rome (and, before that, from Portugal), Oliver Porges from ESN Prague (and, before that, from Slovakia), Martin Kos from ESN Zurich and Wojciech Rynkiewicz from ESN Poland. A few others had to skip this meeting, but we hope they will be able to participate in the future activities.
It was a productive and rewarding experience: I expect the participants to become active ESN Satellite supporters and maintainers in the coming months, they are great guys!
One of the first practical outcomes of this meeting is the institution of regional leaders, which will monitor usage and adoption of ESN Satellite in various areas of Europe. Here comes the full listing:
- Diogo: Italy, Portugal
- Martin: Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia (and Croatia if it becomes part of the ESN)
- Oliver: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Greece, Spain.
- Wojciek: Poland, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
- Andrea: Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, UK.
- Antonio: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Malta, Serbia, Austria, The Netherlands, FYROM
- Peter: Turkey, Azerbaijan, Romania, Bosnia, Belgium, France, Morocco
Every leader will be contacting before the end of 2007 the countries he is responsible for and assist them in installing and developing ESN Satellite: we are close to the milestone of 100 active ESN Satellites in Europe!
We also shared some technical suggestions: as a sparse listing, we got ideas for managing large websites (filtering users, validate users, keep some events private), integrating with Identity (via web services, can also check card validity according to the policy decided by sections), improved authentication (through OpenID or Shibboleth), better events module (with payment and CSV export functionalities), new modules (buddy system, tandem) and easier access to design components (CSS, logo)
In the end, a mandatory thank you to the ESN Board for providing accommodation (in ESN house and ESN Office), assistance (Andim and Francesca attended our meeting and provided information about ESN) and even food, with the president himself starring as the best cook around when it comes to pasta! Pictures by Martin are available online.
