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id="docs-internal-guid-6183d295-7fff-24b5-3221-0727d3a2bb58"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Dear All,</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Can you believe it’s the start of April already? I realised it was exactly a year ago when I last travelled interstate. Since then we in Melbourne have been in lockdown several times and Brisbane have just been in their snap lockdown. These last 12 months have shown us that things are not predictable. </span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">LCA2021 was, I think, a successful conference (although I’m biased). We got to see each other virtually and I think we were able to recreate the homely environment that LCA always delivers for us. We would like to thank our Speakers, Volunteers and most of all you our community for joining Joel, myself and the rest of the core team in this wonderful experiment. All of our attendees will soon be receiving a link to our post-event survey. Now that you’ve probably been to several online events you can reflect on LCA2021 and see how well we did in comparison. Of course we are always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback.</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">You probably want to skip past all this and find out about LCA2022. The Linux Australia Council along with the Canberra team have had several lengthy discussions over the past couple of months to determine the course of action. Things are still up in the air domestically and international visitors are likely at least 12 months away. With this in mind, the Council has decided to run LCA2022 in an online format once more. Council and the team will look at ways to provide an avenue for watch parties to allow delegates to meet up physically in their local regions. While it may be disappointing that we are not all coming together to a single location, we believe this is ultimately for the best given there is still so much uncertainty. Interestingly, when looking back at our announcement about LCA2021, the factors that were listed are still valid:</span></p>
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<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:decimal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;margin-left: 11pt;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">In Australia vaccines have been in short supply and the rollout has been delayed. Most of our contingent would not be receiving their first dose until late 2021, with the second dose timing and availability still unknown.</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:decimal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;margin-left: 11pt;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Opening Call for Sessions for an in person event is hard to do as speakers can’t guarantee that they can travel today, tomorrow or January.</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:decimal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;margin-left: 11pt;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Being realistic about the safety of our international delegates: if there is still no vaccine for COVID-19 we can’t reasonably expect our delegates to go into 2 weeks quarantine on either side of our conference.</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:decimal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;margin-left: 11pt;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">The safety of our volunteers is paramount. </span></p></li>
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style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> </p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">We will have further announcements about LCA2022 in the coming weeks. Please keep an eye out for our Call for Miniconfs soon, followed by our Call for Sessions shortly afterwards. I encourage you to subscribe to the LCA Announce mailing list if you have not already done so at </span><a
href="https://lists.linux.org.au/mailman/listinfo/lca-announce"
style="text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;-webkit-text-decoration-skip:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">https://lists.linux.org.au/mailman/listinfo/lca-announce</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> </p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">So where does this leave LCA2023 you may ask?</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
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<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">We would like to put out a Call for Bids for a hybrid conference to be run in 2023. Calling for bids for a hybrid model now will allow prospective teams to come up with solid ideas to bring both the Online and In Person experiences together and have a longer lead time for delivering a hybrid conference. </span></p>
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style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> </p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">What should I do if I would like to bid?</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">
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<ul style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-inline-start:48px;">
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Pull together a team of those who might be interested in running a Hybrid Conference. Who will be the Conference Chair, Treasurer, 2IC etc.</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Schedule a time to chat with Myself and Joel Addison (Linux Australia Vice-President and Co-Chair of LCA2021). We will then discuss with you the areas you will need to cover in regards to running a hybrid conference including budgets, tickets prices, volunteers, attendees, sponsorship etc. </span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Once we have had that chat, work with your team to develop your bid, then submit it by 11:59PM (AoE) July 31 2021 to </span><a href="mailto:council@linux.org.au" style="text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;-webkit-text-decoration-skip:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">council@linux.org.au</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> </span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">During Quarter 3 and 4 2021, Council will conduct virtual site inspections with shortlisted bid teams.</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Between Quarter 4 2021 and January 2022, Council decides on the winning bid and informs the teams.</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;" aria-level="1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;" role="presentation"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">January 2022 - Winning bid is announced at linux.conf.au Online. </span></p></li>
</ul>
<br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">If you have ever sat in an LCA talk, or had an informal chat to someone about running an LCA, now is the time to put that idea into action. This will be the first hybrid model conference and we want creative and innovative ideas on how we can make this work. We want this experience to be inclusive, exciting and accessible for both our online and face to face attendees.</span></p>
<br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">If you are thinking of bidding, please let Joel or myself know sooner rather than later so that we can support you in every way possible to prepare a high quality bid. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or need help in preparing your bid. </span></p>
<br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Please forward this onto anyone you think may be interested.</span></p>
<br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Looking forward to seeing your bids!</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Sae Ra
</span></p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Sae Ra Germaine
President
Linux Australia
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:president@linux.org.au">president@linux.org.au</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://linux.org.au">http://linux.org.au</a>
Linux Australia Inc
GPO Box 4788
Sydney NSW 2001
Australia
ABN 56 987 117 479</pre>
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