S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

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S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by eddydevries »

Hello, it is December now and it is already time again to start thinking about the Summer EBT Meeting of next year.

In this topic, you can volunteer to organize Summer EBT Meeting 2014. This topic will be closed on 31st of January 2014 (around 17:00 GMT / 18:00 CET / 19:00 EET), so the BoD can start to discuss about the candidates beginning February.

To avoid problems with the time for organising the Winter EBT meeting 2015, the BoD wisches the Winter meeting to be organized not too late.
The period suggested would be in the summer (from July to September), with the suggestion of August.

Requirements/conditions/guidelines for organizers:
  • Two organizers or more. One will be appointed as the main organizer
  • The main organizer is at least 21 years old
  • The main organizer should be able to communicate in English
  • At least one of the organizers should have participated in an official international Eurobilltracker meeting
  • At least one of the organizers should live in or know the city where the event will take place very well
  • At least one of the organizers should have organized a national EBT meeting
Requirements/conditions/guidelines for candidate city:
  • The city should have a certain touristic appeal. International EBTM participants will stay for more than one day and they should be able to see more things than they will see on the meeting day.
  • The city should be located near an international airport.
  • The city should have a railroad station, preferable an international railroad station
  • There should be youth hostels nearby where people can stay cheap
  • There should be a location big enough to host the General Assembly of the Association
  • There should be a few restaurants which are able to have a large group of people eating there or two/three restaurants located near each other which can handle some smaller groups.
Remember this a checklist. If a candidate doesn't match all of these conditions, it still can be a candidate to organize an official international eurobilltracker meeting.
Still, the more requirements a candidate-organizing team has, the more credibility the candidacy has.

Candidates place your candidacy here in this thread before 31st January.
If you do so, give us:
  • The name(s) of the organizing team;
  • The city you want to organize Summer EBTM14 in;
  • The dates that you can organize it; a detailed schedule of the event is not needed, the big lines are appreciated.
Please, keep this thread for candidates only!
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Re: S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by eddydevries »

Now we're almost one month after we asked you to candidate for organising the next summer-meeting.
The deadline for candidating is in just over one week, so that's why I post this reminder.

I wonder, if some of you are thinking about this.

Remember, you don't have to have a fixed full programm ready at this moment. You can post something here earlier ;) .
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Re: S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by Aatos99 »

I think that it would be nice to get international meeting in Vaasa,Finland :D This is just a plan,not a promise :lol: Vaasa is really nice city in summer and I know at least the downtown of Vaasa quite good. I was thinking to get national meeting there,but it would be nicer to organize there an international meeting :D I have organized one meeting before,with my sister,and it was quite easy. Of course it's all kind of different to organize an international meeting,but my English is okay and I think that my parents will help me,if I need help. So Saga02 would be another organizer,if you think that this is good idea. We are both under 18, but maybe that's not problem. And then something about Vaasa; There is an international airport (but it's just a little airport,and you can't fly to there from Middle Europe) and a railway station. Train is the most cheapest way to get Vaasa,and quite fast too. For example,if you fly to Helsinki,it's easy to get train to Vaasa. Or you can fly to Stockholm and from there you can fly to Vaasa :D Just for example. But I think that we can get other candidates and make a vote about the best place to next international summer meeting.
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Re: S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by eddydevries »

Aatos99 wrote:So Saga02 would be another organizer,if you think that this is good idea. We are both under 18, but maybe that's not problem.
When you're organizing a meeting, you have to make agreements (with restaurants, attractions and for renting a room for the General Assemblee).
Especially because such an agreement can value a lot of money (for example: if you'll make a reservation at a restaurant for a dinner for 50 people (€30 each), you're talking about €1500). I think it might get difficult, because you're still a minor.
The "23 years" in the rule was to get organisers with "life-experience", because they always will have to be able to improvise (when you're travelling with such a large group, there will always something going wrong). I think someone of 22 years old might also be capable enough, but I wonder if even a 18-year-old would be able to deal with restaurant-owners and to lead a group of 40-70 people.

Actually, in the past we asked for a permission by the parents if a minor even want to participate an International meeting. Last times we didn't write in the topics, because all the participants where all mayors, but this still counts.
Like in this topic:
ErGo wrote:If you are a minor (below 18 years), tell us which adult will be guiding you with parental approval. Minors without guidance are not allowed.
I suggest, you look for another person who can join the organizing team and can make the arrangements (I'm sure you can find some who has participated in an earlier meeting and know what you have to take care off) (you'd better do this before 31st January). You can be part of the team, but I'm affraid, you two can't be the only members of that team.

An organising team of two people is nowadays also too little for organizing such a large meeting. Last year, we were organising the meeting in Rotterdam with 4-5 people and it wasn't easy. So you'll need more people as well.

But: Thank you for candidating.
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Re: S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by Aatos99 »

Good points,eddydevries! Maybe it's too difficult to organize an international meeting by me and my sister :wink: But I'm still gonna organize national meeting in Vaasa,so if someone is interesting,welcome! 8)
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Re: S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by Ewri »

This is the last week for nominations.

Who would like to show us his city, his country, his banks and his cuisine?
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Re: S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by Aatos99 »

We are interesting about international meeting in Finland. I'm trying to get team to organize the meeting,but we need more time. We have at least three organizers now,but we need more organizers. So if we don't have any other candidates now,I think that we should organize meeting in Finland in summer 2014. We still have many months before summer ;)
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Re: S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by Ewri »

The board will meet on Sunday 2nd February.

We would appreciate if you, and any other interested organiser can give us as much information as you can by 2nd February 6pm CET.
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Re: S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by Aatos99 »

The problem is that we don't have the main organizer. We need to decide,is the meeting place Turku or Tampere,too. So would we vote in this topic,which is better one,Turku or Tampere? Then we can try to find the main organizer,if we don't have any other candidates. How many people normally come to international meeting?
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Re: S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by avij »

In other words, candidates from other countries are still free to join the race to become the Summer EBTM host city.
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Re: S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by eddydevries »

Last year, we had about 40 visitors (most of them on both days, some of them only on Saturday, some of them only on Sunday). It was a little bit less as we were used to, but I think it partly was due to some frequent meeting-users has become inactive, the crisis and because the Netherlands isn't a "special goal" for most users (a lot of them can drive here within a day, so it's possible to visit it another time).

The most populair meeting up till now was with about 80 people.

I think, you can count with 50-60 EBT-ers.

Concerning the choice between Tampere and Turku, this is not the only challenge between both of them :P (link):
Rivalry between cities

Tampere ostensibly has a long-standing mutual feud with the city of Turku, the first capital of Finland. This hostility is largely expressed in jokes in one city about the other; prominent targets are the traditional Tampere food, mustamakkara, the state of the Aura River in Turku, and the regional accents. Since 1997, students at Tampere have made annual excursions to Turku to jump on the market square, doing their part to undo the post-glacial rebound and push the city back under the sea.
But to be serious:
Both of them have an airport, but Turku has the adventage of it's harbour (for those who prefer to drive in stead of to fly).
I've looked for the connections, and both have nice connections: apart to Helsinki also to Copenhagen+Stockholm (Turku) and Bremen+Stockholm (Tampere).

But I think, most important is if there are enough places to stay (hotels) and restaurants where large groups can eat at the same time (can they serve 50 meals at one moment?). Especially the last point: maybe a restaurant has 200 seats, but if there's only one cook, it's doubtful if they can handle large groups.
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Re: S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by Aatos99 »

I think that we won't find the main organizer in a few days,so maybe it would be better to organize international meeting in Finland in the winter or summer of 2015. It would be better,if someone else organize this summer meeting. I hope that we will find the main organizer and organize this meeting in Finland in this summer,but I think that it's just dream.
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Re: S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by eddydevries »

The deadline of the candacy has been extended for two more weeks.

So, if you want to organize the meeting, you can post here until 16th February 2014.
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Re: S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by avij »

Seeing that nobody else seems to be busy preparing for a summer meeting, we hereby announce the candidacy of Turku as the host city for the Summer EBT Meeting 2014.

Background
Turku is the oldest city in Finland, founded gradually at the end of the 13th century. As the oldest and biggest city of the time, Turku used to be the capital of Finland until 1812, when the capital was moved to Helsinki. The first Finnish university was founded in Turku in 1640, until it was moved to Helsinki in 1828. One reason for the move was that some 3/4 of Turku had burned down the previous year. The city was essentially rebuilt after the disastrous fire.

Turku Castle is the largest surviving medieval building in Finland. A characteristic feature of Turku is the river flowing through Turku, the Aura river. Turku Castle is located by the river near the harbour of Turku. Another medieval building by the Aura river is the Turku Cathedral. Turku Cathedral is still the seat of the Archbishop of Turku and Finland.

Turku has long traditions of culture. The first Finnish newspaper was started in Turku already in 1771, although it was actually written in Swedish. Obviously the Finnish-speaking residents of Turku wanted their own newspaper as well, so a Finnish language newspaper was started only a few years later in 1775. The oldest still functioning Finnish association, the Musical Association of Turku, was founded in 1790. Turku and Tallinn were the European Capitals of Culture in 2011.

As Turku is a coastal city, the shipbuilding industry has traditionally been an important part of Turku. Many of the largest cruise ships in the world have been built at the dockyards of Turku.

Schedule
The meeting will be held on the first weekend of August, 1.-3.8.

We will be posting a more detailed schedule of the event later on. The official part of the meeting will start on Friday afternoon and will end at around noon on Sunday. There is a possibility that we'll arrange some sort of a pre-meeting, possibly not even in Turku. Therefore we advise you to NOT make any hotel reservations or flight bookings yet, as the location of the pre-meeting (if there is any) might affect your travel plans.

There will be a tour of the city and we’ll have a table reservation from some suitable restaurant on Friday and Saturday evening. The city tour will likely be tasked to a professional city guide. This will increase the costs a bit, but on the other hand, he/she can most probably give you a better presentation of Turku than any of us organizers.

As this is somewhat of an ‘ad hoc’ meeting, arranged because there were no other candidates for the summer meeting, the schedule of the meeting won’t be particularly diverse. We will of course try our best to fulfill the promises we make.

How to get here
For most of you, the easiest way to come to Turku is via Helsinki-Vantaa airport (HEL, EFHK). From there you can either take a direct bus to Turku (Helsinki-Vantaa - Turku, this will take some 2,5 hours), or take the regional bus to central Helsinki, get a few notes from there and then hop on the train to Turku. The bus trip (line 615) from the airport to the central railway station is some 40 minutes, and the train trip from Helsinki to Turku is about two hours. The trains have free WiFi, so taking the train would get my preference.

Turku has its own international airport (TKU, EFTU), but unfortunately flights to/from other Eurozone countries to/from that airport are rare. You can check the flights to Turku, but chances are that you won’t find a suitable flight via that airport.

If you want to take a slightly more adventurous and most probably more memorable approach, you can fly (or drive through Denmark and Sweden if you’re so inclined) to Stockholm (Arlanda airport) and then take a ferry to Turku. These ferries are not your average ferries, but they’re actually very large hotels with much partying going on, especially during the weekends. They also have various restaurants and usually also their own (small) swimming pool and a sauna. See Tallink Silja Line and Viking Line for some background. For bonus points (or dots), you can make a short stopover on the autonomous Åland islands and the regional capital, Maarianhamina.

The meeting schedule is not yet set in stone, so please hold off booking your trips for the time being until the schedule has been finalized.

Finland in general
Finland is a bilingual country, with Finnish and Swedish being the two official languages. Finnish does not have a close relation to other languages, except perhaps for Estonian. Swedish has some similarities to Dutch and German, so if you know those languages, you might guess the meaning of some Swedish words. However, you do not need to learn Finnish or Swedish to travel to Finland, because most Finns can speak enough English to discuss with foreigners. This is especially true for the younger generation of Finns. English is considered to be the unofficial third language of Finland.

Finland is not a particularly cheap country. Some things might cost more than in your home country. This includes items such as food, alcohol, gasoline etc.

Organizers
The main organizer (as in, the one who will be held responsible if something does not work as expected, and the person who will get to tell other assistant organizers what to do) is myself, avij. I have participated in all the international EBTMs so far, so I guess I know a thing or two about international meetings. Some of you may have met tiura in some previous EBTM. He will be assisting us with all things Turku, as he’s a resident of Turku. He has also organized a recent Finnish EBT meeting in Turku. As quite a lot of preparations can be done over email, phone, web etc, we also have a large group of people who have organized Finnish EBTMs in the past in our roster. These additional organizers will be assisting you with whatever questions you may have, either prior or during the meeting.

More info
Please note that this is preliminary information, hopefully sufficient that Turku will be chosen as the host city for the summer EBTM. If our application is accepted, we will provide more detailed information about the schedule, transportation options, hotels, ATMs etc.
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Re: S-EBTM 2014: Post your candidacy here !!

Post by eddydevries »

The candacy of Turku :flag-fi: has been approved now by the Board-meeting.

More details will follow within a few days (in a new topic).
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