go to PyCon 2015!

[chadwhitacre]

Per private email w/ @dianaclarke, I've submitted a sponsorship application at the open-source/community level on the website.

[chadwhitacre]

@citruspi Fine by me. My inclination would be to sell them at cost, since that's been our general pattern so far.

[citruspi]

@chrisdev To clarify, I'd set up a Teespring and then one of us would purchase some amount of shirts to sell at PyCon. That would allow us to get the PyCon shirts and enable people not going to PyCon to purchase shirts themselves.

@whit537 I'd agree. The shirts I was looking at were $8.XX so I'd probably sell them for $9. I mean we could sell them for $8.XX but I'm not a big fan of change. Actually, we could setup Stripe or Square so people could pay with cards.

[chadwhitacre]

I have a Square reader around here somewhere ...

[citruspi]

We should probably confirm that we can charge cards using Square in Canada. I know that they offer service in Canada, but I'm not sure if accounts based in the United States can charge cards in Canada.

I remember when I was in Montréal for PyCon last year, I tried to charge a card with the reader and it told me I couldn't because I wasn't in the United States.

[chrisdev]

@citruspi when can I purchase the the shirts to bring to PyCon :smile: Did we ever get the design from @whit537 ?

[chadwhitacre]

I've never done a t-shirt design. We have SVGs of the logo and wordmark on http://inside.gratipay.com/big-picture/brand/.

[citruspi]

@chrisdev @whit537

According to the Teespring website

Once a campaign ends, we begin the printing process. This takes about a week. From there, all domestic orders take approximately one (1) week to ship.
So your order will always arrive approximately two (2) weeks after the campaign has ended, not two (2) weeks after you place your order.

I think we have exactly two weeks until PyCon. If we asked nicely, we might be able to get them to rush the printing.

I'm not comfortable designing the shirts because I have no design skills and I also don't have a lot of free time in the next week or so.

If someone got a design together and sent it to me, I'd be happy to setup the campaign.

[chrisdev]

We could just use one of the logos. But the thing i like most on the page is

[citruspi]

@whit537 @chrisdev

So, small problem with the shirts. I was setting up a campaign to play around with it and I saw

Your goal is the number of shirts you’re aiming to sell, but we’ll print your campaign as long as you sell enough to generate a profit.

So unless we talk to them about running a campaign without any profit, we won't be able to sell shirts at cost.

[chrisdev]

@citruspi can we make a small profit and use it as part of a fund for #160 ?

[citruspi]

@chrisdev Definitely, I just figured I'd mention it because we were interested in selling shirts at cost.

So the price of the shirts changes depending on our goal. How many shirts should we aim to sell? 50? 100? 200?

[citruspi]

@whit537 I just emailed you the address you should ship the pennies to.

How much do they weigh and how large is the container? I'm trying to think ahead as to how I'll carry them when I fly to Montréal.

[chadwhitacre]

@citruspi Looks like pennies weigh about 6 pounds per 1,000. The banner will be another ... five pounds? Dunno.

[chadwhitacre]

Here's the dropcloth I started with last time: http://www.harborfreight.com/9-ft-x-12-ft-canvas-dropcloth-38109.html. I think tables are 6ft. and maybe 3ft. high? So a 6 x 6 ft. square should work for the banner.

[chadwhitacre]

No weight given at that link that I can see though.

[citruspi]

@whit537 @chrisdev So, our goal for t-shirts?

Also, @whit537, could you give me access to the Piwik installation? I'd like to play around with it before PyCon.

[chrisdev]

@citruspi I think we should go with 20

[chadwhitacre]

Also, @whit537, could you give me access to the Piwik installation?

We use LastPass to manage passwords. You should have an invite from them in your inbox. Once you sign up for LastPass I can share the Piwik login with you.

[chadwhitacre]

@citruspi I believe you should have access to the shared folder on LastPass now. Let me know if you can't get what you need for Piwik access. P.S. Login at https://gratipay.piwik.pro/. Can you let me know if LastPass is trying to bill you? Their UI is terrible and I can't tell what state you're in billing wise with us. :-(

[chadwhitacre]

I rolled 200 pennies tonight, that's all the ones I already had punched. I have another 100 or so yet to punch. I still need to get to the bank to get more. I should really get this in the mail to Rochester by Friday so that we can use ground shipping (cheaper). It'll be a stretch to pull off the banner by then but I'm confident I can at least deliver on the pennies.

[chadwhitacre]

I did 150 the other night and I got another 1000 today, punched maybe 200 of those so far.

[chrisdev]

@whit537 have we sorted out the electricity at the boot?

[citruspi]

@whit537

I believe you should have access to the shared folder on LastPass now.

I do!

Can you let me know if LastPass is trying to bill you?

It says I have a free month of Pro because I was referred by a friend.

[chadwhitacre]

Okay! Pennies are all punched. :weary:

[chadwhitacre]

have we sorted out the electricity at the boot?

No, I missed the early-bird deadline. Ball is in my court to get that lined up.

[chadwhitacre]

@citruspi I shipped 1,350 pennies (7 lbs). They should arrive by 10:30 AM on Wednesday the 8th. Will you be able to receive them then? If not I can call the shipping place tomorrow and upgrade to overnight for Tuesday delivery. Also, I neglected to get a tracking number, so I will call anyway to ask for that.

P.S. Cost was $25, plus $17 for beers with the guy that drove me to the shipping place at the last minute.

[citruspi]

@whit537 You may need to bump it to Tuesday delivery. The packages need to be processed so they're not always available the day they're received. And my flight to Montréal is Wednesday afternoon, so I would hate to have to have to fly out without them.

[chadwhitacre]

Missed 'em today (they closed at noon). Will call first thing Monday.

[chadwhitacre]

Called and upgraded, should arrive by 10:30 AM tomorrow (Tuesday). I need to stop over and swipe the card again, at which point I'll get a tracking number. +$20

[citruspi]

@whit537 Awesome! I'll let you know when I get it.

[chadwhitacre]

@citruspi Sent you the tracking number in private email.

[citruspi]

@chrisdev @aisipos We should figure out the schedule for PyCon.

[chrisdev]

@citruspi @aisipos let's meet up on Thursday morning at the Expo. We need to go to hall to setup the booth sometime before 6pm on Thursday.

[aisipos]

@chrisdev My flight arrives on Thursday at 3:48pm. Sadly means I probably would make it to the venue about 6pm. Is there anything I can bring to help?

Also - what should we use to keep in touch while we're in Montreal? Google chat, facebook messenger, whatsapp, or something else?

[citruspi]

@aisipos @chrisdev I don't personally use any of those services. Also, we won't have WiFi access everywhere and the cost of cellular data will be more expensive than the cost of SMS.

I'd vote for SMS with Twitter Direct Messages as a fallback.

[lyndsysimon]

I'm sure there will be lots of activity on IRC, official or not.

My flight comes in just before 1pm Thursday, which means I'll likely be at the convention center around 3pm or so. I'll drop by the booth with the decals (that I've still not made!) as soon as I get a chance.

I'm not sure yet if I'll have cell/data access or not - I'll be on IRC as much as possible though, so I'll let you know.

[chadwhitacre]

I ordered the electric. Receipt forwarded to @chrisdev @citruspi.

[chadwhitacre]

Any issues you need me for, my cell is 412 925 4220. I'll try to remember to keep my phone on. :)

[chadwhitacre]

P.S. Here's our current expense tally:

250.65 electric
 10.00 pennies
 45.00 pennies - shipping
 17.00 pennies - gratibeers
------
322.65

[chadwhitacre]

FedEx shows that the pennies arrived yesterday at 9:22 AM. Were you able to pick them up, @citruspi?

[citruspi]

@whit537 Yep, I have them.

[chadwhitacre]

Yep, I have them.

Huzzah! :penguin:

[chadwhitacre]

Hear that, @Rdonnelly45? The pennies made it! :-)

[Rdonnelly45]

Mission accomplished! Nice

[chadwhitacre]

From @chrisdev in private email (names redacted):

I’ve got some feedback from some users in the Python community.

A. He actually uses his tips to fund someone else. He figures that the drop off he is seeing in his contributions has to do with lack of notifications. In particular found out that the CC of some of his main contributors expired but once he told them about this they started to contribute again. Also he removed his Gratipay Buttons form his blog Github repo and contributions started to fall.

B. Very interested in how “Shanleygate” affected contributions. However, i think he is still positive about the mission of Gratipay/Chad and is hoping we could do something to rekindle momentum on the site. Also, showing the stats is nice when we were growing but now it is a bit downer and may make people think is not a good platform for raising money.

C. A bit sad that contributions have fallen, attributes it mainly to general lack of desire of folks to contribute to OSS even though they use it every day. This attitude was also affecting his direct appeal efforts

D. & E. They were largely using their tips to fund others. So when their tips fell then their contributions to others fell. Lack of notifications meant that they did not think about/remember their Gratipay Accounts for long periods.

F. Our problems were due to lack of marketing. Why do we not send emails like the other services on the goings on of the company. We need to have some way to promote key users

Others I also got the impression that G. and others felt that they had overcome most of their negativity to the platform but they are still “cautious, wary, sceptical etc.” . The far bigger problem is that they feel that we are ineffective as fund raising platform largely because of poor UX and the fact that the stats show contributions are falling on the platform.

H. He was fascinated about the Gratipay Open company model. He saw Gratipay as the future of organisational culture. Our problems were really a reflection that we were way ahead of the curve. He sounded that he wanted to make us a case-study in his next blog/book :)

[chadwhitacre]

@citruspi Does Piwik show anything interesting?