Précis
The Western New York State Drupal User Group https://groups.drupal.org/western-new-york coined the term “mini-camp” for its one-day, nontraditionally located event that was first held on a Saturday in late April, 2013. The benefits of a lower planning overhead, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. session schedule, and unanimous thumbs up of the venue and program inspired us to propose this format as an adjunct to Drupalcamps and Drupalcons.
Background
Our WNYDUG g.d.o group has been meeting in Greater Buffalo consistently since mid-2010 but has never enjoyed a surplus of attendees at its in-person meetups. The reason is unclear. We are in the presence of a better than average density of higher education institutions including the largest campus of the State University of New York.
In October of 2011 we branched out and started to hold meetings in Batavia, NY which is strategically located between Buffalo and Rochester, the two largest cities in the area. Turnout has been sub-par. The region is still growing in open source adoption, making Drupal users few and far apart. Driving, especially during the winter months, may impede attendance.
Plan C: We began holding mid-month virtual meetups in addition to our monthly in-person meetups. This has helped keep more of the group involved, even when members cannot make it to a physical meetup.
Virtual meetups are held via Google+ Hangouts. They also allow guests from around the circuit to pop in and keep things interesting. Attendance by members from Southern Ontario, Ohio and even Europe has boosted our vitality.
When in-person attendance to meetups became a problem, we also began to experiment with the idea of a single-day event in a relaxed, desirable spot that would draw a group of participants from up to three hours down the road. This event could have a low cost and operate much like the popular Barcamp.
The Drupal “mini-camp” concept was born.
How We Brought People Together
The kickoff destination was Ellicottville; WNY’s Aspen-esque ski village with its own draw of nature, new development and old standby nightlife. Securing off-season booking for the Holiday Valley Lodge and Conference Center was integral to making the event viable. Also, the mid-spring timing became an automatic perk to pull attendees out of their element and get them to a favorable destination.
Our target demo didn't stop at solo developers. We requested discount room rates from the neighboring inn, and their staff obliged. That allowed several couples and even kids to stay longer and make a “heated pool and spa” weekend of it. Or, attendees could head home that same day. No pressure.
An 11 a.m. Saturday start time enabled carpooling from Toronto, Niagara/Hamilton and Cleveland, not to mention WNY, Ithaca and even Oswego. Composite attendance created just the right effect, as intended, and new acquaintances started getting made as early as the 10:30 a.m. coffee and pastry roll-out. Following our sessions, lunch and coffee breaks, the classroom setting shut down promptly at 5 p.m. to allow groups to split up and reconvene for dinner or beverages in town.
Like Any Other Camp . . . Sort Of
Planning started with a verbal proposal about four months ahead of the event, within one of the monthly group meetings. Initially sentiments were mixed due to location—a ski lodge during the spring lull, versus someone’s regular office space—but the novelty location paid off. A turnout of three could have worked; instead we had an ideal twenty-six attend.
A handful of WNYDUG volunteers split up the planning of accommodations, lunch and refreshments, and program. We passed up the chance to use the COD distribution after our one-and-only Drupalcamp WNY 2011 ran into inefficiencies from counting on it. Instead the mini-camp concentrated most planning details and the entire program on G.d.o, using its “vote up” option to rank proposed sessions. In the end, the number of sessions was an exact fit for the schedule, with no worries about being voted off the ski slope.
Certain planning did require Basecamp for a few non-public conversations, plus Eventbrite for managing ticket donation processing. Our group manager’s company generously defrayed the cost of both services. Using g.d.o for messaging among the adjacent sections, e.g., Niagara/Hamilton, Toronto and Cleveland, proved a bit difficult but not entirely unwieldy. At one point we did need to have a Groups senior admin reset a poll. It fell prey to a bug that closed the poll out to any responses upon editing it.
Beefed up g.d.o event pages with inter-group functional improvements would have been useful. As the system works now, discussions/events that are cross-posted. This tends to spawn derivative posts in outside groups instead of within the WNY group. Crosslinking our own G.d.o posts added to the complexity. For instance, the initial discussion on the proposed mini-camp had to be deprecated once the official sign-up post for the event took over as the main discussion thread, which itself linked to the Eventbrite ticketing and lunch menu poll.
For lunch, we opted for the standard Drupalcamp style of maintaining a captive audience. Keeping everyone in the same room created synergies that an on-your-own recess may not have. Tallying a headcount for the boxed lunches that the conference center made up and served proved to be one of the biggest challenges of planning. We stayed within budget thanks to a very accurate guess—even with a surge in last-minute signups, we ended up on the nose with respect to the number of box lunches ordered. As the event date neared, rolling deadlines with a ticket donation price increase helped, but a hard cutoff of signups in time for catering to finalize the count would have been safer.
Fiscal Deets
Our g.d.o admin, whose company WebOzy, Inc. covered certain administrative costs as mentioned above, reported these expense details publicly to our group page:
$72.00 meetup.com fees (6-month)
– $72.00 WebOzy donation
$726.32 mini-camp costs (room and accommodations)
– $575.75 Eventbrite pre-registration
– $ 25.00 at-the-door cash registration
– $125.00 prize raffle
– $ 0.57 WebOzy donation
$ 0 balance
The hefty cost of the box lunches, coffee service and facility rental made up the bulk of the event liabilities, with Eventbrite fees adding to the load. Thanks to a kind donation from BuildAModule.com, we were able to defray virtually all of the gap left from the sum of our twenty-six suggested donations @ $25/head.
Summary (The Essence of a mini-camp)
- “Less is more.”—in terms of attendance, cost, and complexity
- “Leave them wanting more.”—keep the schedule moving and the day short
- “The idea is it's a day event, you go to dinner, and then you’re good.”
- Rely on g.d.o and other tools over COD, for ease of planning.
- Use Eventbrite to administer ticket donation costs and printing.
- Have an established business handle all the funds.
- Consider limiting attendance to 25–30 attendees, to allow everyone to meet.
- Run a raffle for donated goods to defray extra costs.
- Promote the event at least a month in advance using the following:
- G.d.o
- Meetup
- Eventbrite
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Google+
- LinkedIn
- NextPlex
- Mailchimp mailing list
Feedback on the Mini-Camp (by WNYDUG members)
Positive:
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A smooth event
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Well organized
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Addressed different skill levels
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Provides new people a chance to talk and share experiences, trouble, and good stuff
Negative:
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Not recorded or streamed
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Facility not open in the evening
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Some topics went over head
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Not enough time to meet and talk
Statement of Mini-Camp Format Proposal
In light of the above experience in holding the inaugural WNYDUG mini-camp, and in anticipation of repeat mini-camps in upcoming seasons, we submit to the Drupal Association that the format of mini-camp be added to the existing event types (group meeting, Drupalcamp, Drupalcon) as a viable means of drawing together community members and fostering new connections within G.d.o groups and among their adjacent counterpart groups.
Submitted 6-14-2013 by
John P. Weiksnar (jpw1116) - WNYDUG group organizer
Nicholas Garofalo (Eidolon Night) - WNYDUG group admin