Florida Drupal Camp Planning - 10/28 conference call notes

Last night (10/28/08), we had the first Florida Drupal Camp planning conference call. Those in attendance were:

Joe Moraca
Andrew Riley
Bob O'Leary (do I have your last name correct?)
Mike Anello

Here are the topics and action items we discussed:

1. Possible dates: Februray 7/8 or February 21/22, 2009. Final date selection will depend on location availability.

2. Location - Andrew - it may or may not be possible to use MindComet's facilities depending on timing. Andrew will be looking into 4 other possible central Florida locations: RDV, "the old ballroom", DeVry, Full Sail.

3. Outreach - Ryan - will contact other Florida tech groups as well as north and south Florida groups.drupal.org/Florida members. We will be looking for both participants and potential speakers.

4. Tracks/Schedule - Bob and Joe will post suggested schedule (wiki-style) on groups.drupal.org/florida to start getting feedback about what sessions to have. We may also need to have a general session for sponsors to give a short presentation about whatever they want (as a sort of thank you for sponsoring us).

5. Umbrella Oganization (or lack thereof) - Mike - after an email conversation with Kieran Lal from the Drupal Association, he has convinced us that we should keep it simple and not have an umbrella organization and not deal directly with finances in any way. Registration will be free with a required 24-48 hour confirmation. We'll post a "what we need" list on the web site and direct potential sponsors to it. More on this in the next item.

6. Food/drinks/t-shirts/swag - Mike - keeping with the "simple is better" principal, here's what we'll be asking sponsors and/or participants to provide for the event:

- t-shirts - as part of the registration process, we can have people indicate if they'd like to purchase a shirt at the event (including size info), then have someone (for a profit, if need be) produce and sell the shirts during the camp.
- breakfast (free coffee - starbucks?, free bagels - panera?, juice - sponsor?)
- lunch - big sponsor
- soft drinks, water - sponsor or participants (if we have 15 particpants provide 1 case of drinks each, we could probably cover it that way - something else to consider for part of the camp registration process)
- giveaways - books, stickers, DVDs - sponsors

1. Web site - Kevin

- Greg from CivicActions owns drupal-camp.org and would be willing to provide us a subdomain redirect.
- have registrants re-confirm 24-48 hours prior
- "what we need" page (see #6 above)
- ask about t-shirts and "what we need" stuff during registration process

1. Associated events

- 2nd day activity - hack-a-thon for a non-profit? code sprint? informal Drupal help/advice area (where people can sit with "experts" for specific advice for their site) - is there interest in any of these?
- Post-camp party - resturant? bar? We'll handle this after location/date is set.

1. Logo - view/add/comment at http://groups.drupal.org/node/16017

2. Stuff not to forget - the "Materials and Supplies" section of http://drupal.org/node/247972 is something we'll need to deal with as we get closer.

Our next conference call is scheduled for Tuesday, November 11, 9PM. Joe will provide call info prior to call.

Please get involved! Comment on what I've posted here, join our next conference call, tell your friends, find sponsors...

-mike