Hackfest in Marseilles

The Bywater crew at the pancake place

To finish up the Europe leg of my world tour I went to Koha hackfest in Marseilles for 2 days before heading off to Washington - and it was totally awesome. I think there might have been 66 people attending over the week which is amazing!

Hackfest is like an unconference where all the attendees say what they want to work on and then a programme is put together. Lots of conversations, lots of bug fixing, lots of shared knowledge and lots of socialising.

What I especially loved were the greetings; it was like the movie 'Love Actually'. A bunch of us met up in the square with delighted hugs and handshakes; some were meeting in person for the first time after years of talking online (like me and Owen), others were old and new friends reuniting (me and Katrin who havn't met since KohaCon10) and me and Mirko (who I saw only a few weeks ago).

We went to the pancake place and over the next 3 hours as people arrived that scene was repeated and again the next morning at the BibLibre offices as people arrived.

International cheese lunch

I spent my time developing a Trust Deed for a new Trust that will take possession of the Koha assets that will be passed over with the winding up of Te Horowhenua Trust. This is because the Trust needs to vest its assets before it is wound up following Council's decision to no longer fund THT to provide library services in Horowhenua.

An infamous part of Hackfest is the cheese lunch and by crickey - it was astounding. We all ate too much and I can say for the first time in my life I was 'cheesed-out'.

That evening 15 of us went out to a beautiful French restaurant that Paul had suggested and most of us went for the Chef's menu of 5 courses - of his choice.  What a wonderful way to finish my hackfest.

I kept my head down in Marseilles and got a lot done but by about 3pm on my last day I realised I hadn't sat in the sun and drunk wine by the harbour - so that is what I did!

Marseilles harbour - old town