Follows an email I just sent to our key speakers from North America and a number of others
New DrupalSouth Dates are January 23-24. Let me know within 10 hours before I re-announce if you have any major objections.
2009/10/22 Emma Jane Hogbin wrote:
I just found out that Brenda can't make the dates of January 16-17 because of LCA! It would be a real shame to not have her participation at DrupalSouth especially considering the AMAZING work she has done with Geekspeakr and the fact that *ahem* all of the out of town speakers on this email are ... women.
I would be most appreciative if DrupalSouth was set on a date that Brenda could attend.
Thanks for raising this issue Emma. I was aware that there was a conflict for folk from Catalyst IT (Brenda Wallace, Josh Waihi and 0-4 others) and LCA organizers (mostly only Brenda), but had not been able to gauge how significant the conflict was. I had tried to discuss this with both Josh and Brenda, with a little success.
There is no date that will be good for everyone. However we want to accommodate as many as possible, especially on key speakers and attendees.
I spoke with numerous people today (most are CCed) and have decided to switch the dates to the weekend after LCA, Saturday and Sunday 23-24 January. If there are any major objections to this, there are 10 hours to let me know before I RE announce the NEW dates – though please read below first to check that I haven't already considered your objection.
The main reason for switching to Saturday 23-24 is it will allow Angie to come to almost all of DrupalSouth; she will miss out only on the late afternoon of Sunday 23. She flies out at 6pm and will need to depart DrupalSouth at around 3pm.
If it were Jan 16-17 Angie would miss out on all of Saturday and arrive late on Sunday at about 11am straight from the airport. This would be a major loss since numerous folk have already commented that being able to meet Angie is a significant drawcard to the event.
Liz Henry flies out the afternoon of Sunday 24 also, 1.5 hours before Angie, so will also miss out on Sunday afternoon. She would have been able to make it to all of DrupalSouth if it were 16-17. Sorry about this Liz. :(
All of these dates are fine for Addisun and Emma.
Saturday 23 will be a major conflict for those with stands at LCA Open Day, such as Dave Lane @ Egressive, maybe some Catalytes and probably a couple of others. It will be a minor conflict for others wanting to attend it or the related hack-fests. However those with stands are few, and it only runs from 11am to 2pm.
Further, LCA Open Day is typically a very minor event compared with the rest of LCA. Many LCA attendees do not typically attend Open Day.
The DrupalSouth schedule will help counter this conflict by having the main events and speakers on Sunday. And on the Saturday – at least until 2-3pm – by having a light schedule, a long lunch-break and/or code or doc sprints. Since the venues are just a few hundred metres away people can easily go between them several times during the day if they want to.
Another issue is that survey results showed a notable preference for DrupalSouth to be "just before" LCA instead of "just after". However any loss of attendance resulting from this is probably less than the loss of attendance resulting from Angie not attending for more than half of the event.
Another option for dates I considered was Sunday-Monday 24-25. Monday is not an option for many of the target audience. Further, Angie would not be able to attend more than half, and Liz would not be able to attend 3/4.
Yet another option I considered was to compress it into a one day event on Sunday 24 and/or spread it over both weekends. This would cause too many issues regarding sponsor's and attendee's expectations and negatively impact the vibe we created at DrupalSouth Christchurch 2008 and would like to continue at this and other DrupalSouth events.
By the way, I'm looking for work and new projects; http://drupal.geek.nz/blog/i-am-seeking-drupal-development-contract-work
Thanks!
Bevan/
Drupal, NZ, Usability, Open Source, Web & Tech
http://Twitter.com/BevanR http://Drupal.geek.nz/
DrupalSouth Wellington January 23-24 2010
The NZ Drupal event http://groups.drupal.org/node/26217
Sent from Thailand. Next:
Wellington from January 4
Christchurch from February