Debian Med sprint meeting in Southport

After the success of the last Debian Med sprint meeting in Lübeck we were granted the opportunity to organise a similar event in early 2012. This page assists in planning the event and records outcomes of the meeting.

The main organiser is Tim Booth (tbooth_ceh.ac.uk), the lead NEBC Bio-Linux developer.

Location/Date/Capacity

The sprint will run from the 27th-29th January 2012 (Friday to Sunday). The main part of event will begin on Saturday morning. Friday is reserved for a tutorial on FPGA computing.

The venue will be the Dukes Folly Hotel Southport, UK. This is an independent hotel that will provide a similar atmosphere to the one we enjoyed in Lübeck-Travemünde, and we will have the place to ourselves for the duration. The hotel has only 17 bedrooms, but to accommodate up to 30 of us working in the daytime will not be a problem. For overspill, other hotels are nearby - see below. For after hours, our hotel has a fully licensed bar and Southport is also well supplied with places to eat and drink. Unfortunately, the famous funfair will not be open at this time of year.

Signing up/Cost

Please add your name and other details to the table below. You will be contacted nearer the time to confirm details, so please check you have given a valid e-mail address and arrival/leaving dates. This table will be passed directly to the hotel to confirm reservations. If you have any special requirements you should contact the hotel directly on +44 1704 533355 - they are very friendly!

There is a flat rate per person of £35 per night for bed and breakfast. On the Saturday and Sunday the hotel will provide refreshments plus a full buffet lunch for £10 per person. So if you are staying for three nights the total cost to pay will be £125. For dinner each night and for lunch on the Friday/Monday we will make our own arrangements.

Getting to Southport

The Hotel is not far from the main rail station in Southport - less than 1km. (Click the thumbnail map for a larger version.)

http://nebc.nerc.ac.uk/static/images/southport2012/sp_map_big.gif

There are three international airports nearby:

Manchester Airport - trains run hourly direct from Manchester Airport Station to Southport, taking around 90 minutes

Liverpool John Lennon Airport - short bus or taxi ride into Liverpool, then trains run half-hourly to Southport

Blackpool Airport - is technically the closest, but there is no direct transport link to Southport, only a bus service via Preston.

For all public transport journeys in the UK, you should check http://www.transportdirect.info.

Overspill accommodation

If we end up filling the hotel, people may want to consider:

Talbot Hotel - Just around the corner, cheap. No on-line booking available.

Rosedale Hotel - Small hotel opposite Talbot. No on-line booking available.

Brittania Prince of Wales Hotel - Large hotel nearer to station. Headline prices are high but promotional offers may reduce the cost to under ~£43 per night. See website for bookings.

Attendees

No

Name

Email

Organisation (Interests)

Living in

Arrival at

Departure at

Booked room

Travelling details

1

Steffen Möller

<moeller>

U Lübeck (Debian)

Lübeck (D)

Thu 26.1.2012

Mon 30.1.2012

yes

2

Andreas Tille

<tille>

Debian

Wernigerode (D)

Thu 26.1.2012

Mon 30.1.2012

BE869 Southampton -> Manchester 16:30

3

Tim Booth

tbooth_ceh.ac.uk

NERC (Bio-Linux)

Wallingford (UK)

Late Thursday

Monday

4

Alan Williams

prerw_cs.man.ac.uk

U Manchester (Taverna)

Manchester (UK)

Friday

5

Richard Holland

pre.sur_eaglegenomics.com

Eagle Genomics (NGS, Cloud)

Southampton (UK)

5

Pjotr Prins

pre.public01thebird.nl

Debian/BioLinux

Wageningen (NL)

6

Tony J. Travis

ajt_minke.ukfsn.org

U Aberdeen (Bio-Linux)

Aberdeen (UK)

Thu

Monday

7

Olivier Sallou

pre.sur_irisa.fr

U Rennes 1

Rennes (FR)

Friday

Monday

8

Piero Fariselli

pre.sur_unibo.it

U Bologna (1D->2.5D)

Bologna (IT)

9

Stefan Baumgart

presur_sciengines.com

?SciEngines

Kiel (D)

Thu

10

Daniel Siebert

?SciEngines

Kiel (D)

Thu

11

Ivo Maintz

pre.sur_biologie.hu-berlin.de

HU (Sys Biol)

Berlin (D)

12

Laszlo Kajan

lsur_rostlab.org

Rostlab (1D->2.5D)

Munich (D)

Thu 26.01.12

Mon 30.01.12

yes

13

William Spooner

Eagle Genomics

Babraham (UK)

14

Jim Procter

jsur_compbio.dundee.ac.uk

U Dundee (Jalview,java in debian, osgi)

Dundee (UK)

Thu 26.01.12

Mon 30.01.12

15

Sascha Steinbiss

sur_zbh.uni-hamburg.de

U Hamburg

Hamburg (D)

Friday

Monday

16

Stuart Owen

U Manchester (Seek)

Manchester (UK)

17

Brian Thomason

pre.sur_eucalyptus.com

Eucalyptus (cloud)

Santa Barbara (US)

Friday

Monday

18

H. Soon Gweon

hyugew_ceh

Bio-Linux

Wallingford (UK)

Late Thursday

Monday

19

Quyen Nguyen

pre.sur_h-its.org

HITS (Seek)

Heidelberg (D)

20

?

(workflows)

Barcelona (E)

21

Matus Kalas

pre.sur_bccs.uib.no

U Bergen

Bergen (N)

Sponsorship

Without wanting to taint the non-corporate volunteer nature of Debian, attending these events is expensive. We thank Debian for supporting the travel of its developers and all the employing institutions for their support. And quite some participants pay the travel from their private pockets. Sponsors for food and travel are welcome.

Agenda

The meeting addresses the following topics over Saturday and Sunday - please add yours. Work and discussions will happen in parallel in the same room. The schedule is determined on Friday evening when most of us are expected to have arrived on site.

As a special feature, just like with bigger conferences, only better, this year brings us a 'hands-on' tutorial on FPGA computing for application acceleration. It is planned to take up all of Friday and this way only enriches and not disturbs the remainder of the meeting. Respective attendees are expected to arrive already on Thursday.

Schedule

It's worth noting for those not in the know that there is some symbiosis between this sprint event and the annual BOSC Codefest which is held before the ISMB conference. Though the meetings are quite different in focus, they have recently engaged many of the same people and projects.

See also