Feedback Request: Drupal Discovery Day Programme & New Sponsorship Structure

Today (and night it seems!) I've been setting up a copy of COD - the Conference Organising Distribution for our Drupal Discovery Day in Brighton on 16th September and working on copy for the site and promotional material. It's 1am so thought I'd post up what I've got so far before I crash for the night in case anyone wants to give any feedback. Ignore the formatting for the minute (especially seen as I can't seem to get the ULs and LIs working nicely ;) and just think about the words and the kind of people we're trying to attract to this event.

I'm hoping to get the site up by the end of the weekend so that people can start getting tickets from next week!

In order to pull off the following schedule we'll need more sponsorship than I originally thought as I'm including breakfast and lunch, however I feel it would be nice to be able to offer those - amazing what providing a bit of food does for attendance levels ;)

I'm also speaking to my accountant on Monday as non-profit and charities get 25% off venue costs - not sure we can get things set up in time to do this but worth asking.

Costs:

• Room hire £275+VAT = £330
• Tea, Coffee, Water & Biscuits (2 servings per person) £1.75 + VAT per person = £87.5+VAT = £105
• need 2 lots of coffees, one for the morning session and one for the afternoon = £105 x 2 = £210

Beers £500? That's about 2 drinks per person

Potentials if get sponsorship:

Breakfast (Croissants and Pastries with Orange Juice) £3.50 + VAT per person = £175+VAT = £210

Buffet Lunch (platters of sandwiches, fruit and cake slices) £7.50 + VAT per person = £375+VAT = £450

Tickets: 50 x £5 = £250; or 50 x £10 = £500

Leaflet printing: ?

Total sponsorship required:

Room £330

Breakfast £210
Coffee 1 £105

Lunch £450
Coffee 2 £105

Bar £500

Leaflet printing: ?

Promotional display boards? Really necessary for this one?

Total so far: £1,700

This could be achieved with the following:

Platinum Sponsor: 1 x £500
Gold Sponsor: 3 x £250
Silver Sponsor: 5 x £100
Bronze/Individual Sponsor: £50 (unlimited amount) - perhaps we could get or make Drupal t-shirts to give to individual sponsors - worked for me in Drupal Dev Days Brussels!

We would need 1 Platinum sponsor (White Hat??), 3 Gold (Sereno, Miggle, Blue-bag???), and the remaining £500 from Silver/Bronze/ticket sales.

Potential sponsors - let me know what you think!

...and everyone - here's what I have so far for the schedule copy. Main changes: We had talked about a theming session but I swapped it for one on distributions because I believe that's going to be a better fit for the audience, also I'm not set on the topic title for the panel discussion so ideas welcome. Please let me know if you think I've missed anything out, you think something's in the wrong place, you have extra ideas, etc.!:

What is Drupal?

• Drupal gives individuals the power and freedom to create unique spaces on the web.
• Drupal gets small businesses on the web fast.
• Drupal is enterprise-ready and invading Fortune 500 companies.
• Drupal is the platform powering your favorite musician's web site.
• Drupal helps thousands of non-profits around the world.
• Drupal is the publishing platform that enables thousands of publishers to engage with their visitors.
• Drupal helps other Open Source projects build their communities.
• Drupal is the open source platform making governments work better.

With over half a million contributing developers in 200+ countries, Drupal powers over 2% of the web including such diverse sites as The White House, Economist.com, Examiner.com, Amnesty International, MTVuk, .net magazine and Data.gov.uk.

Drupal (pronounced drew-pull) is a Content Management System and web application development software written in a popular scripting language - PHP. Drupal has over 11,000 modules and over 1,000 themes, along with both a point and click interface to allow tech-savvy people to put together websites with no programming experience; and an API and framework for programmers to develop unique applications. Best of all, it's free, open source software!

9am-1pm: Hello Drupal! (some technical)

Who is this for?

• Ideal for those working in the New Media industry
• Students exploring options for careers in web development, cloud computing and infrastructure, design, sales, marketing.
• Career switchers looking to expand on their prior experience.
• Self-starters who are curious and want to learn new skills that are in demand.
• People with some prior experience of or knowledge of web development.

Prerequisites:

Knowledge of HTML and CSS preferable. For prospective site builders: an understanding of web development. For prospective developers: experience with web development, knowledge of PHP or other programming language helpful.

By the end of the training you will be able to:

• Explain how a typical site is built in Drupal, and explain the page-model in Drupal.
• Use Drupal specific terminology such as fields, views, node, block, page.
• Determine what skills you need to develop to reach your goals.
• Know where to go to find career opportunities in Drupal.
• Articulate the various roles and opportunities available.

Schedule:

09:00-09:30 Breakfast and Hello Drupal! registration

Croissants and Pastries with Orange Juice and coffee will be available.

09:30-11:00 Come for the code, stay for the community

There are over 640,000 people in 228 countries* speaking 181 languages powering Drupal. Almost every day there is a Drupal event happening somewhere in the world, and twice a year thousands attend one of the DrupalCon conferences. In this session we introduce the Drupal community and explore the many roles and opportunities available.

11:00-11:30 Coffee Break

11:30-13:00 Gentle introduction to Drupal and its' terminology plus practical hands-on session (bring your own laptop!)

Learn how Drupal works and get some hands-on training with a beginner's guide to using Drupal for the first time!

1.30pm-6pm: Discover Drupal (no tech just business!)

Who is this for?

• Ideal for those working in the New Media industry
• Web design and/or development companies looking for new opportunities
• Business owners & IT Directors looking to reduce costs and gain competitive advantage

Prerequisites:

No technical knowledge required!

Schedule:

13:30-14:00 Lunch and Discover Drupal registration

Sandwiches, fruit, cake slices and coffee.

14:00-14:15 Introduction Drupal Discovery Day - Steve Purkiss, purkiss ltd.

A brief introduction to the event from Drupal Consultant, Trainer, and founder of the Brighton Area Drupal Association, Steve Purkiss.

14:15-14:45 Drupal is Scalabe: From a single-page blog to the world's biggest sites, Drupal does it all! - Guy Schneerson, Blue-bag

With modules covering Content Management, Commerce, and Collaboration, Guy shows how easy it is to do much more than just blogging with Drupal.

14:45-15:15 E-commerce Made Easy with Drupal Commerce - Richard Jones, i-KOS

Drupal Commerce is a lean and mean open source e-commerce framework built on Drupal 7. Use it to build flexible and highly customisable websites based on the best platform for social commerce.

15:15-15:45 Exploiting Drupal Distributions - Steve Purkiss, purkiss ltd.

• Overview of popular Drupal Distributions

   

  • OpenAtrium - Intranet in a Box
  • COD - the Conference Organising Distribution
  • OpenPublish - News & Online Magazine Publishing

 

• Web design & development companies - leverage your own distribution!

15:45-16:15 Coffee Break

16:15-16:45 Brighton Area Drupal Site Showcase

Take a peek at some amazing Drupal sites built by local companies in this lightning showcase session.

Presenters:

• Kevin Elliott, White Hat Media
• Steve Purkiss, purkiss ltd.
• Guy Schneerson, Blue-bag

16:45-17:30 Introducing Acquia Professional Services and the Acquia Commons Social Network Drupal distribution - Jakub Suchy, Director, Professional Services Europe, Acquia Inc.

Acquia is a private, fast-growth company supporting enterprises that use the free and open-source content-management system Drupal. Co-founded by Drupal's creator Dries Buytaert in 2007, Acquia recently won a fourth funding round of $15m to help drive the adoption of Drupal.

Acquia Commons is the open social business software that has everything you want - collaboration, community, and more - at a surprisingly low total cost. Increase engagement and productivity immediately. Whether your community is public or private, Commons does it.

17:30-18:00 Panel Discussion - The Business Advantage of Drupal

Panel:

• Kevin Elliott, White Hat Media
• Alick Mighall, miggle ltd.
• Steve Purkiss, purkiss ltd.
• Guy Schneerson, Blue-bag

[everyone] 6pm onwards: Drupal Drinks

18:00 Have a drink or two on us!