hepix

Hosting a HEPiX/HEPNT Meeting

Spring 2002

Maria Dimou - CERN/ User Support

This is a simple list of facilities that the hosting site should provide to the meeting participants. It is prepared based on my limited experience (2 meetings) of HEPiX/HEPNT attendance. It is written for use by the hosts of the Spring 2002 meeting in Athens, Greece.

Catholic/protestant Easter being on March 29th, 2002 and Orthodox Easter being on May 5th, 2002, the suggested period for the meeting is the week of April 15th, 2002.

The expected number of participants is approximately 100 people. Each pays a fee of about 200 US$ that covers everything in the bulleted list below (they pay hotels and most meals separately).

web site with: ( this must be available mid-January 2002, i.e. 3 months before the meeting)
- registration form
- meeting agenda
- contact email address for information
- instructions for reaching the venue from the airport/hotels
- list of hotels
- maps of the area, the city centre, the meeting venue.
make a meeting room fitting 100 people available for a week
ensure possibility to project trasparencies from a portable computer in the meeting room
book restaurant for a social event, one evening around the middle of the week. The registration fee should cover this (wine can be billed separately).
make a folder with badge and writing material per registered participant.
offer secretarial support for:
- receiving registration fees
- delivering receipts
- giving information
- making photocopies/calls, sending faxes, when needed
- pre-labelling path to meeting/terminal/coffee room in the building/campus
offer by the meeting room coffee/tea/juice/snacks twice/day, all meeting days
arrange with catering lunch on-site if needed or list of restaurants in the neibourhood.
record all talks for web trasmission. Live webcasting seems to be a problem now in Athens.

The suggested possible venues:

Metsovion (down-town)
- Advantage: easy access to hotels.
- Disadvantage: need to arrange with catering to bring lunch/snacks, no easy restaurant access.
- Questions: is there a meeting room for > 70 people? is there a computer room with Internet access for 20 terminals/portables near-by?
Demokritos (Ag.Paraskevi)
- Advantage: meeting room and internet access facilities seem to be no problem.
- Disadvantage: no hotels in the neibourhood for so many people. Hiring a bus expensive for the participants' fee.

The people contacted in Athens:

manolis@mail.demokritos.gr (Manolis Floratos),
cmark@mail.demokritos.gr (Christos Markou),
pan.kokkinias@cern.ch (Panayiotis Kokkinias),
egazis@central.ntua.gr (Evangelos Gazis),
manolis.dris@cern.ch,
christine.kourkoumelis@cern.ch,
dimitrios.fassouliotis@cern.ch

The first-contact text sent on Tue, 22 May 2001 From: Maria.Dimou@cern.ch :

Dear colleagues,
first of all, accept my apologies for writing in english, it is easier for me as I work in Linux and have no greek fonts installed.
As I have already discussed with some of you (Man. Floratos, Evag.Gazis, T.Kokkinias) I represent CERN in a technical group, called HEPiX/HEPNT-W2k, which deals with harmonisation of tools across HEP for the management of Linux farms and the migration from WNT to W2K on the desktop.
I have made a site with information on HEPiX you can browse in http://cern.ch/ref/hepix/ Please see agendas, presentations and reports from recent meetings to get an impression of the group's on-going work.
The group meets twice per year on each side of the atlantic to ensure participation of most labs. Participants' examples are CERN, FNAL, SLAC, LBL, BNL, MIT, IN2P3, RAL, DESY, LAL-Orsay, INFN.
There is a strong request for holding the Spring 2002 meeting in Greece. We would all like that greek physicists and engineers who manage PC farms are present in the meeting, join the group and participate in the future sessions.

I need your help to identify a site where a meeting room is available for 70-100 participants for a week, with possibility for internet access near-by. Coffee and lunch or snacks should be easily accessible too.
I have made a more detailed list of the facilities needed but I'd like you to offer a venue, assign the people that will be directly involved in the local organisation and let me know.
Luckily, Takis Kokkinias, who organised the CERN School of Computing recently, in now at CERN and gives me valuable advice. Please tell me which of your institutions could host this and whom do I proceed with the details.