Should the Los Angeles Drupal community submit a proposal to the Drupal Association?
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groups: Los Angeles · Southern California
Cary Gordon - Wed, 2008-03-05 22:28
Yes, I want to be the event chairperson/co-chairperson!
6% (1 vote)
Yes, I am willing to take responsability for one aspect of the event.
38% (6 votes)
Yes, I am willing to volunteer.
31% (5 votes)
Yes, I would attend.
19% (3 votes)
Yes, I might attend.
0% (0 votes)
No, I hate Southern California.
6% (1 vote)
Total votes: 16
Sitewide tags: Los Angeles Drupalcon · Spring 2009
Ical feed
If you answer yes to any of the first three,
Please leave a comment.
Drupalcon 2009 and Drupal Camp 2008
I have yet to attend a Drupal Con, but the Drupal LA Camp last year was excellent, enlightening, and petty darn fun. If a Drupal Con is that same sort of thing an order of magnitude or so "more," then i suspect there are enough of us in the LA area showing up for the LADrupal group, plus other companies now using/specializing in Drupal in the area, that a proposal is in order to whom- or what- ever sanctions such things for 2009.
So is there an ad hoc committee or the like to oversee such a submission? I'm in favor of minimizing administrative structure, keeping the cost as close to 0.00 as possible, but what's the minimum? how formal do we need to be, or does it already exist, and this Drupal sub-Padwan is just ignorant...?
Steve Carter
Welcome
to the ad hoc committee!
I will gaff the proposal in terms of putting it on paper and making sure that it gets where it needs to be. The proposal itself will be created by the community, right here in the Los Angeles group.
What sort of proposal is this?
When I threw DrupalCampLA last fall, we put on a whole, free conference funded solely on sponsor donations and ended up even being able to donate money back to the Drupal Association with the money left over. What sort of event or project are you guys talking about here?
I was planning to start work on another DrupalCamp soon and was again planning to fund it on sponsorships.
-Crystal
Edited: Ok, I missed an email and realize that this is for DrupalCon in 2009. I still think we need a larger group and better organization before we go after this one. I think the direction the new meetings are going is excellent, and with another DrupalCamp this summer, we have an opportunity to build a stronger base of organizers is this is something we'd want to tackle later on.
This didn't format the way I expected.
And, apparently it can't be edited. But to your concerns:
I don't think that an established organization is necessary to make this happen. Certainly, no such organization has existed for past Drupalcons. The Boston con was put on by Acquila, a company that has only been in business a few months, and Barcelona was done by four people. In its short history, no Drupalcon has been organized by a local group.
We are currently sitting at least a year from the next US DrupalCon. We have months to develop a formal proposal. If the Association accepts another proposal in the meantime, that is fine, as well. I was approached by a permanent member of the Association and organizer of the current Con who asked me - with no commitment on either side - to organize a proposal.
At this point, I want to gauge interest and recruit a few key people to commit to doing >some< work on this event. The event itself will be run by a professional organizer, who could come from the Drupal community, although that will not be a requirement.
I am ready and willing to discuss this with you or anyone who might be interested at any time. While I would like to keep this as open as possible, there are some things - particularly conversations with sponsors - that cannot be discussed in this forum.
I'm interested
As I've said in other posts related to supporting events, I don't have a lot of history with these things, but would be happy and enthusiastic to help.
I loved DrupalCamp! It was amazing to meet so many local drupal people and the sessions were awesome. If you[Crystal] want people to help with any aspects of DrupalCamp and are willing to provide a little guidance, I would love be involved with organizing it. I'd then be more prepared to work on DrupalCon.
If we work on this proposal, and it doesn't happen in March 2009, we could push for it to happen later in the year, giving us ample time to work on it.
I definitely loved the fact that DrupalCamp was free, and not just because it saved me some $$, but also because you get a really broad spectrum of people coming to the event. It would great if the same could be done with DrupalCon.
me too camp
I agree with Crystal. As active as LA has been recently, in a manner of speaking its a drop in the bucket... ooo, bad pun. :-P
We seem to have a lot more active independents, or our bigger shops don't participate as much.
I vote for another highly sponsored / organized drupalcamp - I think if we pull off another camp of similar quality as the last drupalcamp, it is actually better than Drupalcon. Don't get me wrong, Drupalcon was great - but I felt it was a bit too large & unweildly - tho the parties were better
ps - seriously - am I the only one, or did the poll seem biased? lol
(track that NAMBLA, g.d.o. got nofollow to the hilt!)
Do you have to code to help?
I am learning PHP and have very little programming experience but I love drupal and am new to being active in the community so if there is anyway I can help, i'd definitely be into that.
No coding required
Most of the tasks associated with producing a Drupalcon are non-technical.
How to contribute
http://drupal.org/contribute - something for everyone if you're serious. got questions? ask someone. IRC. here. forums. only a few of us bite.
^^^
I´m in a very similar boat as Mimetic2 so I am a bit ¨gun shy¨ also. I do think I could contribute & voted on: Yes, I am willing to take responsability for one aspect of the event.¨
While I can (& will!) help anywhere I´m needed. I figure I will, at least, be able to record some of the sessions (which I will hopefully be able to stream as well as, later, podcast). I´ll be getting my hands on the hardware in a few months crosses fingers.
I'm always interested
I voted on #2, but I am verbally voting for #1. With that said, I agree and have talked with members of LA Drupal about us growing the solid member base and attendance for our local events relating to Drupal. While I was at the Boston con, DrupalCamp LA had high respect from community leaders - we're already impressing people, so let's keep doing what's working: meetings monthly, advocate, and our annual DrupalCamp. I'm not saying anything against a Con proposal, I like having cons local, but I will say that Boston had a really dedicated group of volunteers and having at least one of the premium sponsors in their town as well.
There you go. Add another 2 the body count.
Prop me up. I'll pick up coffee. Pass out Jello Shooters. Do Valet Parking. Fry some electrical equipment. Troubleshoot wireless or become a human sign.
I am happy to volunteer
It was nice to meet everyone on Tuesday
HI, new here
Hello,
I am the official Town Crier of the City of Los Angeles. Yes, we do have one , that is me.
I stumbled upon drupal and am working on my site with it right now. I am a novice at programming and am having fun building a website that is so awesome and interactive.
Because you guys are proposing to hold these events free of charge. It sounds like I can be of service. I have access to all of the venues in the city of Los Angeles operated by the city of Los Angeles. IF it is a community benefit event, basically free to the public, then the city can help sponsor with venues.
Explain to me what will be needed.
I can ask the city of Los Angeles if we can use one of their venues.
Don G
YES! Hi.
Hello. Thank you for posting! The event coordinators should respond to you soon.
Again, thank you for contact us with your help. Very much appreciated.
Sweet!
Hi Don,
Thanks so much for posting and glad to hear you're enjoying Drupal! We'd definitely be interested in finding out what venues are possible.
-Crystal
Hey Don & Everyone!
Hi Don Lee & Everyone -
I run Arts for LA, a nonprofit arts advocacy organization serving the LA region. We just launched our 1.0 drupal site and totally love it! I also work closely with the City and many many arts and cultural organizations throughout our region. I know for a fact that the arts community would LOVE to know more about drupal.
Danielle
www.artsforla.org
For crying out loud!
That's great news! Thanks so much for the offer Don.
More info
If we want the convention center we can use it for a drupal camp. It would consist of my council member requesting a fee waiver. There are other expenses and it sounds like Arts for la , being a 501 c 3 can work that angle.
Let me know what you want to do.
AM still wanting to help put this on. As the official Town Crier of Los Angeles, I have this capacity to help in any capacity that is needed for events that are are a community benefit.
I work closely with all council members and the Mayor's office, as well as the Downtown Business and Arts Community..
If you have any other ideas for venues let me know.
downtown BID support
I suspect the downtown BIDs might have an interest in this as well.
Is this the downtown bid?
Historic Downtown Los Angeles Business Improvement District
How do you see them being involved? Is their website using Drupal?
I've just spent time on there website and most of the information is more than 2 years old. Maybe they are still functioning but it's not reflected in their website. However, I did find their links to be quite helpful.
the many downtowns
There are 3 separate BIDs downtown whose sphere of influence makes them interested parties, South Park, Central City, and the above mentioned Historic Core.
Bringing people together downtown is a major concern and goal of all of these BIDs, I await a document for this venture to present to all of them.
Sorry, Need to clarify
If we want to hold a drupalcamp then the Convention Center can be had and fees waived , if it is open to the public.
planning, networking communications infrastructure & e-learning
I'm a full participation enterprise systems kinda guy (see http://kmw.caltek.net ). my community roadmap at: http://kmw.oacsrocks.org has information that is close to being a comprehensive representation of my teknolwedgy-lab references and resources.
while i have a couple drupal start-up sites i mostly use the http://openacs.org on http://caltek.net. with that said....i'm able to participate in the planning and production of this event with the hopes of being able to support a wide range of user centric participation in community and learning environments.
i'd also like to find or help produce a Drupal LiveCD to distribute ( http://livecdlist.com )...i mostly use http://edubuntu.org http://mepis.org http://puppylinux.org and PCLinuxOS Community Remasters: http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&It... which any one of them
could be used to distribute Drupal with our event tied in.
I am available to work on this during the week, during the day.