Meeting around the creation a new SIG for competitive programming
Present (9+2): Fergus (President), Elisa (Treasurer), Vincent (1st Year Rep), Cat (Tech Sec), Charlotte (Social Sec), Tomas (3rd Year Rep), Vojtech (Project Share), Ol (Tardis), Marton (Potential SIG Committee), Said (Potential SIG Committee), Chives (Old Person Rep), Aurora (School Rep)
Charlotte: karaoke was kinda dead, guessing after HTB. Any other ideas for socials
Fergus: beer pong
Charlotte: is karaoke unattractive
Fergus: I woulda went, but I was too tired
Charlotte: I will do another beer pong event for the next weekend (16th March)
Fergus: Do not do them at Nucleus
Charlotte: we can do AT lecture theatre?
Fergus: we should open rooms, not lecture theatres
Cat: Can we change caterer for next year?
Ali: I might ask for cafe
Charlotte: you can pay them (a deposit)
Cat: What I think is a good idea is to submit to devpost and get short-listed, then other people can see who won and what projects
Ali: people don’t know how to use devpost. Some people submitted at 12:55 (5 minutes before)
Cat: it would be faster to submit to devpost and shortlist than walk around
Ali: people would say it’s unfair
Cat: how is it more unfair than a demo? What I’m saying is, you’ll get to see what we do
Ali: next year, we’d prefer not to have hackathons UK people
Ali: hackathons UK suggested sending judges across the building to each team’s table for judging and was hard to cooperate with
Fergus: Try to present what your SIG is, we will ask questions and make a vote
Said:
Fergus: do you have registered members
Said: 10 sigantures
Fergus: only 10? did you stop at 10?
Said: yes
Fergus: 10 is bare-minimum
Said: UK competition has 40 people, so we can attract those people
Fergus: you are 1st years. Competitive programmers are usually scarce. What is the age demographic in terms of university year you have signed up Said: so far, year 1s. But there are many people in competition
Fergus: if you only have year 1s, it might be hard to attract older students. How will you attract members who are better than you at competitive programming? Academic students can sometimes be stubborn to join societies, especially against progSoc?
Said: just to clarify, progSoc does nothing about comp programming
Fergus: they did last year
Said: programming club is not progSoc
Fergus: I meant programming club
Said: programming club people are focused on research and aren’t really organized. I’ve contacted Neil and Michio, because we obviously need the school’s support
Fergus: Michio might not be of much help
Said: I am mainly talking with Neil
Fergus: is programming soc the one that helps with the easier stuff?
Said: progSoc brings people together to work on projects
Fergus: the concern is then programming club, but it is not a problem since it is not a society. We do not want a repeat of the EUTIC issue.
Fergus: What are your plans for organization
Said: regular & weekly stuff: make a problem set and work on it together. For a more broad range, we can do workshops and do bigger contests. Eventually, we can do a inter-university competition (like pwnEd)
Tomas: (checking website) programming society is about intro to code
Fergus: my concern is that it’s all first years, because you have not done algorithms course yet.
Everyone gasps, jokingly
Fergus: there is mathematical rigor in there. You will have people asking questions and detailed explanation. My concern is you don’t have anyone yet, unless you are about to tell me you have the World Olympiad Champion
Said: I started this in HS, I feel like I’m quite well-versed in this. I was on the uni’s winning team this year.
Fergus: That’s good.
Ali: the competition is once a year. So your SIG will be active around that time?
Said: yes
Ali: will you do what SIGINT does like beginner and advanced workshops? Are you training to compete? Or is it “let’s learn how to leetcode”?
Said: big competition is October, but there are many online ones, so we are planning to do many. Workshops are a good idea, but it depends on membership skill levels
Ali: do you need CompSoc funds and snack money
Said: most members are already in CompSoc, we will just need reach
Ali: are you planning to host events and speakers?
Fergus: I submitted funding proposal to Neil by estimating how much money each SIG needs for the year. If you have any plans for conferences, you will have to wait for a year for financing, or get your own money. CompSoc can help out, but we need to know ASAP
Said: we are not planning a big event in the first year. Depends on interest. Large events are future plans. We are looking for potential sponsors. There are big companies sponsoring competitions, like Jane Street (they sponsor Oxbridge).
Fergus explains complicated financing scheme to do with sponsors and SIGs
Aurora: how will you host workshops? I was at the competition, I don’t see how you can do big group setting. Will you teach people leetcode?
Said: our regular meetings won’t be a competition. We will have problems, people can work in groups or individually. Does not have to be a big group setting. People can be split into groups based on level and/or interests.
Ali: when do you plan to start?
Said: welcome week of next year.
Ali: can you prepare things in advance?
Said: we want to prepare everything, that’s why we want to create SIG now so we know it’s happening
Fergus: AI SIG had a freakout because the workload was unexpected. Can you guys set a standard and stick to it? Doing things weekly or biweekly is important, because otherwise you become a closed group. Maybe that’s your goal, but then your focus needs to align with that.
Chives: we used to propose challenges, and whoever had an idea can present it
Said: we can do that
Chives: about the logistics, you need to sort out cooperation with the university, so that the team you propose actually goes to competitions
Said: there’s a process in-place, not much we can do about that; it’s up to the uni. We can just help people and teams prepare
Passed unanimously.