Hi all, Since it's been a bit quiet about the Amsterdam Meetup lately, I was thinking of simply proposing a date and a venue myself. Maybe I missed out on the conversation, in which case I apologize upfront!
By no means I'm trying to push this into a 'real conference' - these things grow over years! But I do like to see this Meetup happen, because: - I think it would be good to get 'The People Behind Wicket' on stage, while allowing 'New People' to have their say as well, in an informal setting - It's a good way of attracting non-incrowd people - The ApacheCons and similar conferences have a too high barrier for people that are interested in Wicket but do not know how to start. Of course, the ApacheCon conference is an excellent way of broadening ones vision, but for non-Apache people it's hard to dive into - People who have not yet decided whether they want to use Wicket, could be held back by a 'private' meetup. These people do not know the community, and don't know what to expect. A more 'anonymous' (ie. bigger) meetup could help lower the barrier and bring in new developers - We need to close the gap between users and developers, and having them all in one room helps - Too many little meetups shatter the community instead of building it up - It's an excellent environment to grow a network and a community - There's already 28 people on the Wiki page, and this might grow even further - Organizing the meetup in a 'neutral' environment ensures the community stays neutral too - And finally: it should be initiated, supported and organized by the community itself Covering the costs of such a meetup doesn't have to be hard. For the Cocoon GetTogether meetups, there's a 125 euro fee for three (3!) whole days. We do have some sponsors over there to cover for lunches and coffee and connectivity. If we allow sponsors for a Wicket meetup, I guess a one day event could easily be free for all attendees. On the other hand, if sponsors are a concern, then we could have all costs covered by a 50 euro fee or something. The Apache Cocoon community has had a really good experience with Amsterdam as a venue location. It's very well-reachable from all around the world, and pretty affordable too. Just to have something realistic to talk about - I apologize if I'm moving too fast here - I've called the Felix Meritis building to ask which rooms are available (and affordable!). The room can hold up to 50 people sitting at tables (with laptop and all), but we can scale up to 200 if we want :) These dates would fit their schedule: Friday November 23rd Monday November 26th Friday November 30th Please note that these are weekdays. We could also try weekends if that's better. We could also try combining this with a course from the London guys.. Let me know what others think....! ---- Kind regards, Arjé Cahn Hippo --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
