Compsoc Minutes 30/09/2005

Fri 30 Sep Meeting Minutes

Present

Laurence, Adam(ajmiles), Christopher West(Faux), Jonathan(Lucidion), John(Nugent), Tim, Phil(DrWatson), Ian(icStatic), Christopher Endicott(MFJ), David(Bucko), Sadiq, Chloe, (Euan)zx64

Fresher’s Fayre

Sadiq has spoken to Ed Longden about Compsoc being put on Tuesday, and he’s now moved it back to Monday. We also have 200 Knoppix CDs, 60 of which will be given out at the FF, with 120 for the CS133 lecture. We also have some stationery from IBM that can be put on the stall and given out. The poster will go up on the board behind the stand. It’s agreed that Sadiq/Chloe will setup at 9am, with an aim to start at 10am. Ian(icStatic) is available from 10am until the mid afternoon, and Christopher E.(MFJ) from 11am til 3pm.

Ian(icStatic) is going to see what he design video wise over the weekend and bring his 2001FP.

Advertising Compsoc

Sadiq is going to a CS118 lecture on Monday at 1pm to plug Compsoc. Then at 3pm both Tim and Sadiq are going to a CS133 to again plug Compsoc/LUG and then hand out the Knoppix CDs at the end.

Insomnia

Phil(DrWatson) and Fred(Fred) will poke Insomnia in the near future to check/get everything working.

First Social

The first social will be on Thursday from 6:30pm onwards. Chloe is going to organise food, and Ian(icStatic) will again try and have a video ready by Thursday.

The exec sits quietly while trying to think about some potential icebreakers/games that could be run at the first social but come up with nothing. It is suggested some A5/A6 leaflets could be drawn up to give out to the attending freshers to give them an idea of what we do. The exec will also be in Compsoc clothing to talk to the freshers.

Alton Towers

Chloe will book the tickets tomorrow, everything is a go.

LAN Signups

To give the freshers a bit more of a chance to get acquainted with signups etc, the signups will open for the first LAN on Weds Week 3 for members, and Saturday for guests.

Sponsorship

After learning that a few of the potential sponsors of LANs would like 2 months notice and 40 names on a piece of paper before commiting to sponoship, it is agreed this is going to be difficult to organise. Ian(icStatic) is going to keep looking into other sponsors and what their demands might be with regards to signups in advance.

Console Tournaments

When both LIB1 and LIB2 are available console tournaments could be held downstairs. Given the fairly busy Compsoc schedule this year, LANs really are the only/best opportunity to hold the events. The first console tournament will be at the LAN in week 4, and have separate signups. People already signed up for the LAN will have automatic entry to the Console Tournaments.

LAN, Prizes, Tournaments

Phil(DrWatson) mentions that HoG are again willing to make prizes for future LANs when they are required. Suggestions of any games people want to see in tournaments should go to the exec list for consideration.

Another LAN social on the Saturday will be organised for Saturday afternoon.

LUG CDs

Tim will be handing these out at 3pm in the CS133 lecture on Monday.

Finances

Phil(DrWatson) is going to check what tech-related matters might need money this year. Ian(icStatic) brings a breakdown of Compsoc’s finances which is as follows:

Capital: &£577
Grant: &£140
Current: &£644.74

Total: &£1361.74

Newsletter

A “wizardy thing” will be drawn up to go on the Compsoc website for signing up to various services. The setting up of 3 new mailing lists for: Academic/Social/Gaming will be created so more specific mail can be sent to the people that want it. A list of things to go in the first newsletter are:

Codathon

IBM has given &£200 for prizes at this year’s codathon. The format will be 48 hours of coding from 8pm on Friday until 8pm on Sunday. We could have a blind vote before the event to decide what the topic/project will be for the event.

In groups of 2/3 people will code their solutions, and then they’ll get sent to IBM for judging as per the agreement. It is suggested that &£100 of the money could go on prizes, and &£100 go towards food/drink to keep the busy coders alive/awake.

Plugins for the new bot “Choob” is one possible, but games might also be more appealing.

IBM Sponsorship

The Compsoc trip to Hursley Park in Week 7 (November) is arranged. Slightly nearer the time a coach will be organised, and the trip may be “plugged” in a CS lecture. We need to go through the union for risk analysis/approval for the trip soon too.

IBM have also offered to sponsor the next batch of Compsoc clothing if we want it, although it was decided last year that we didn’t want to sell ourselves out to company’s sponsorship. This second batch of clothing could be ordered in Week 6, so orders might open sometime in Week 5.

Guest Lectures

Steve Matthews has agreed to do the same lecture as last year, while Stephen Jarvis may do one on High Performance Computing. We will also find out soon if Dr Solomon wants to do another lecture. Emailing weebl is also another possibility.

Perl Tutorials

Weeks, 7,8,9, already booked and organised.

C Tutorials

Ian(icStatic) will decide whether he is going to have time to run these nearer Christmas, and will also talk to Dr Li about the best time to run them (in term 2).

Programming Competition

We have &£500 from Accenture and one T-shirt for everyone that enters. The concept/programming will be organised by Adam(ajmiles)/Laurence soon. Once dates are finalised Adam(ajmiles) will let Sadiq know so he can tell Accenture.

IRC Bot

Choob is the new IRC bot to replace JinglyBOT, it is multithreaded (oooo). A rather prolonged debate about what to call it ensues with possible names including “ChooBOT”, “MurphyBOT”, “CovBOT” etc, any sensible suggestions to the exec list.

It is decided too that the transition from JinglyBOT -> Choob should be to set a date and switch, rather than run them in parallel. Choob will be ready very soon, and we’ll find out next week exactly when.

OSP

Choob is our OSP for the year…

Workgroups / Study Sessions

(Euan)zx64 is to organise the workgroups and talk to Adam(ajmiles) about booking rooms.

Gaming Contract

The new gaming Contract this year states we have room B208 rather than B208 and B209 as it did last year. The room is booked from 10pm -> 4am, we supposedly have 16GB of quota rather than the 10GB we have now… There are 22 machines in B208, so signups may have to be limited to 20. Any testing/compiling/servers may have to put next door to maximise numbers.

We also to make sure we take special care in clearing up both rooms, whether the mess was made by us or the people in there previously.

’Tov Accounts

It is mentioned that we might like to advertise our hosting a bit more proactively this year than last. However it is also noted that the union might not be best please, and the society doesn’t exactly get anything from it, so we will rely on word of mouth alone.

We also could potentially move tov from its current location when we have the racks setup in RaW.

New Website

Near christmas time perhaps.

Servers

Once the racks are installed in RaW we can put two old nodes from a CSC cluster we acquired there, making sure we rely on one, and use one as a backup.

AOB

Nope!