We have a room offer and expect to close the deal tomorrow. At today's SeaPIG meeting we discussed the facility, schedule, content, and marketing for the Day. This is a summary.
Lexis/Nexis is paying the entire cost, thanks to Bryan Weingarten. We declined catering. It is mostly confirmed that we can bring our own food. If so, we'll potluck. If not, there's a QFC with deli/bakery/coffee a block away for snacks, and a cafe or two within two blocks. (There's also Bartell's behind the QFC if anybody needs health-maintenace things.) The Day will be Saturday, January 30th at Seattle Central Community College, from 9am till 5 or 5:30. The room is available from 8 till 6. It's a double room with a folding wall in the middle, with a total capacity of 175. The room numbers are BE1110/1111, which somebody said is in the main building. (Not the Science & Math annex where the Postgres conference was.) There will be basic folding chairs. We're confirming whether both rooms have A/V equipment, but since it's a college I assume so. The SCCC IT program (http://seattlecentral.edu/bitca/) will host the event, specifically its manager Lisa Sandoval. She is enthusiastic about bringing more open-source events to SCCC. The cost is $800, broken down as follows: - $400 for the room, furniture, and A/V - $200 to the college for wireless Internet and miscellaneous staff services - $200 to the hosting department to benefit their academic programs As I said, Lexis/Nexis is paying all this. Coffee/tea service would be $1.50/person on weekdays but an unspecified extra on Saturday because it's normally closed. I decided that given our unknown head count (we haven't done pre-signup yet), the unknown surcharge, and our sponsor's requirements (everything on a single invoice determined in advance), that we'd be better off just doing our own. The planning schedule is: Fri Dec 11: Bryan pay the room fee and close the deal then: Andrew make the wiki pages (intro page, attendee signup page, talk proposal page) then: Announce the event, ask for talk proposals (James), and begin marketing Thu Jan 7: Deadline for talk proposals Thu Jan 14: SeaPIG meeting at UW. Decide on talk proposals (if not done earlier). Fri Jan 15: Confirm accepted talks to speakers (if not done earlier) (James). Sat Jan 30: Python Day (hooray!) The double room allows the possibility of two tracks. We decided to see how many talk proposals we get and the distribution of topics, before deciding whether to do two tracks. The talk proposal page will also have space for attendees to initial talks they're interested in so that we can estimate the audience sizes. Three scenarios are being considered: - 1 track: 8 half-hour talks - 1 1/2 tracks: 12 half-hour talks (half track scheduled in midday) - 2 tracks: 16 half-hour talks There will also be three lightning talk sessions of 1/2 hour each, which means five 5-minute talks per session. Lightning talks will be scheduled at the event, except the first three talks will be prescheduled to give the speakers time to prepare. James will ask for proposals on the list and choose three of them. We'll ask the Django group, Plone group, and CUGOS group (GIS people) if they want to participate and offer talks. That may determine whether we'll have a second track, and how to distribute talks between the tracks. I assume each group can offer 2-3 talks, and that would be 6-9 talks right there. We can also ask other groups, if there are any other groups that would like to offer Python-related topics. For marketing, we brainstormed target groups and who has a contact in those groups. We need everyone to think about who you know, and to ask those people if they know anybody who'd be interested in the Python Day or if they'd be willing to advertise it to their group. Target groups and SeaPIG members responsible for informing them: - Django group (James) - Plone group (Mike to Brian Gershon) - CUGOS group (Mike to ?) - Portland Python group (?) - Vancouver Python group (?) - UW (Justin) - Seattle Central CC (Lisa our host) - North Seattle CC (?) - South Seattle CC (?) - Bellevue CC (Mike maybe) - Seattle U, Seattle Pacific, UPS, PLU, Western Washington U, Central Washington U (?) - Lexis/Nexis (Bryan) - Google (John) - Amazon (is Adam still there?) - Steve Howell, Ingy -- you're on - python.org (somebody needs to post an announcement) If you can be the "?" on any of these, please do so. Again, marketing is not to commence until the deal is closed and the wiki pages are up. Is there anyone with graphic skills who can make a PDF flyer, letter size and quarter-page size? I outlined a draft schedule. The times may not be exact but the tentative order is: 8:30 setup 9:00 intro & lightning signup 9:30 lightning A (3 prescheduled, 2 regular) 10:00 talk 1 10:30 talk 2 11:00 overflow (to absorb setup time between talks and in case we get off-schedule) 11:15 break 11:30 talk 3 (2nd track: talk 9) 12:00 talk 4 (2nd track: talk 10) 12:30 lunch 2:00 lightning B (5 talks) 2:30 talk 5 (2nd track: talk 11) 3:00 talk 6 (2nd track: talk 12) 3:30 overflow 3:45 break 4:00 talk 7 4:30 talk 8 5:00 lightning C (5 talks) 5:30 end 6:00 room vacated -- Mike Orr <[email protected]>
