From catherine.devlin at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 21:11:10 2009 From: catherine.devlin at gmail.com (Catherine Devlin) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:11:10 -0400 Subject: [Conferences] cheap food Message-ID: <6523e39a0907271211kd63b8f5w66878bbcccef8ff9@mail.gmail.com> We just finished PyOhio 2009. I'm a biased observer, but I think it was awesome. Eventually, I intend to write up an extensive report, but I'll start with the food (generally the biggest expense of a conference). One of the things I was proud of was feeding roughly 200 attendees on $5/day each (lunch, drinks, and plentiful snacks). Even at that, I think we over-bought by about 50%. The key is not to be locked to a designated caterer, which most venues try to do. CHECK THE CATERING POLICY BEFORE CHOOSING A VENUE! Such caterers typically milk their monopolies shamelessly, charging $20+ for even the simplest meal, plus a pint of blood, a kick in the shins, and a curse upon your immortal soul. Lunch on Day 1 was bagels, plus a flood of snacks and fruit from the grocery store - all extremely cheap. Leftovers kept people snacking happily throughout the weekend. Day 2 was pizza, the cheapest mass meal you can get delivered. We asked locals for pizza recommendations and got a good one. I think the unlimited snacks was one reason people didn't feel like we were skimping on food. It's amazing what a cookie does to a person's mood. The next cheapest meal option I found was sandwiches from Subway, but they would have cost roughly $4 per person, which wouldn't have left enough for plentiful soda. You must caffeinate. Speaking of caffeine, if you can get Keurig machines, for coffee, do. They are cup-at-a-time brewers, and you buy individual units of coffee to use in them. We got them for $0.50 per serving, and the vendor loaned us the machines for free. That's vastly cheaper than getting a caterer to bring urns in. Coffee drinkers like them, too, b/c the individual units come in a variety of flavors. I recorded our expenses on this wiki page (largely so I can repeat the order for next year). http://wiki.python.org/moin/PyOhio/Food -- - Catherine http://catherinedevlin.blogspot.com/ *** PyOhio * July 25-26, 2009 * pyohio.org *** From catherine.devlin at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 16:11:41 2009 From: catherine.devlin at gmail.com (Catherine Devlin) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:11:41 -0400 Subject: [Conferences] Open Space for conference organizers Message-ID: <6523e39a0907280711s4cf67a04pc564f942c73aec4e@mail.gmail.com> Some of you might be interested in this - Matt Arnold (who runs Penguicon, a hybrid SF/FOSS convention with > 1000 attendees) is planning a (daylong, I think) Open Space meeting for con organizers. It's originating in the SF con community, but we software geeks are welcome, too. I hope to make it there myself (still figuring out travel logistics). (SMOFCon, incidentally, is a meta-convention for organizers of SF cons.) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Matt Arnold Date: Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 3:59 PM Subject: Re: [PyOhio-organizers] Fwd: Missing PyOhio :( To: Catherine Devlin I'm hosting a SMOFcamp on Saturday, August 22 in Ann Arbor. It will be an Open Space for running conventions. It's paid for by the Penguicon board of directors and hosted as part of the new summer relaxicon, ConStruct. http://constructacon.org -Matt On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 3:38 PM, Catherine Devlin wrote: > Thanks, Matt. ?If we have time at PyOhio, I'd love to pick your brain > about how to balance fostering-community-by-being-democratic vs. > making-decrees-so-things-get-done. > > It still frustrates me that I couldn't make SMOFCon when it was in > Columbus last year. ?Why not?... (wait for it...) because I got sick, > of course! > > On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 3:30 PM, Matt Arnold wrote: >> Hear, hear. You will never know the confusion you averted by this >> proclamation. Re-arranging a large minority of a conference schedule >> on the day the program needs to go to press is never a good idea. This >> should be dealt with by an errata poster. >> >> -Matt >> > > -- > - Catherine > http://catherinedevlin.blogspot.com/ > *** PyOhio * July 25-26, 2009 * pyohio.org *** > From aahz at pythoncraft.com Thu Jul 30 23:41:11 2009 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:41:11 -0700 Subject: [Conferences] FWD: [PyCon-Organizers] What's in a name? Message-ID: <20090730214111.GA4579@panix.com> Forwarded per request ----- Forwarded message from Steve Holden ----- Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:01:42 -0400 From: Steve Holden To: "Pycon-Organizers at Python.Org" Subject: [PyCon-Organizers] What's in a name? I see there was some discussion late in today's meeting about "PyCon" vs. "PyCon US", and some trepidation about whether simply calling the US conference "PyCon" would step on European sensibilities. For what it's worth I don't think there'd be any problem with retaining the name "PyCon" for the US event. When I was at EuroPython I acknowledged (so some applause) that EuroPython was the first community Python conference. You have to remember, though, that EuroPython is a trans-national event, not a national one. (For the benefit of the geographically-challenged Europe is a continent, not a country). We have seen the emergence of many national conferences, and so far it seems that most of them have chosen to use the PyCon name with a country subscript, whether a two-letter code as in the case of Argentina (AR) and France (FR) or with a full country designation such as Italy (Italia). The exception is New Zealand, who are currently designating their conference "Kiwi PyCon". That's OK with me too. EuroPython remains special, however, and I doubt very much, given that the even is run by the "EuroPython Society" that they would ever want to become "PyCon Europe" or "PyCon EU". If you want to avoid treading on toes don't worry about the naming, simply acknowledge that EuroPython started about six months before PyCon (US) did. As its founder I think PyCon in the US deserves to use the name without any suffix simply by virtue of its pre-emininence in terms of both size and longevity, and I don't think this would ruffle any feathers with the other national conferences. I'd be happy for someone to forward this message to the conferences discussion list (of which I am not a member) to see whether or not I am correct. regards Steve -- Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/ Watch PyCon on video now! http://pycon.blip.tv/ _______________________________________________ PyCon-organizers mailing list PyCon-organizers at python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pycon-organizers ----- End forwarded message ----- From rasky at develer.com Fri Jul 31 01:04:09 2009 From: rasky at develer.com (Giovanni Bajo) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:04:09 +0200 Subject: [Conferences] =?utf-8?q?FWD=3A_=5BPyCon-Organizers=5D_What=27s_in?= =?utf-8?q?_a_name=3F?= In-Reply-To: <20090730214111.GA4579@panix.com> References: <20090730214111.GA4579@panix.com> Message-ID: <70109c721820fa09ef4a100940902654@develer.com> FWIW, as a PyCon Italy organizer, I can't see any problem with it. To me, PyCon US has always been *the* PyCon. On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:41:11 -0700, Aahz wrote: > Forwarded per request > > ----- Forwarded message from Steve Holden ----- > > Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:01:42 -0400 > From: Steve Holden > To: "Pycon-Organizers at Python.Org" > Subject: [PyCon-Organizers] What's in a name? > > I see there was some discussion late in today's meeting about "PyCon" > vs. "PyCon US", and some trepidation about whether simply calling the US > conference "PyCon" would step on European sensibilities. For what it's > worth I don't think there'd be any problem with retaining the name > "PyCon" for the US event. > > When I was at EuroPython I acknowledged (so some applause) that > EuroPython was the first community Python conference. You have to > remember, though, that EuroPython is a trans-national event, not a > national one. (For the benefit of the geographically-challenged Europe > is a continent, not a country). > > We have seen the emergence of many national conferences, and so far it > seems that most of them have chosen to use the PyCon name with a country > subscript, whether a two-letter code as in the case of Argentina (AR) > and France (FR) or with a full country designation such as Italy > (Italia). The exception is New Zealand, who are currently designating > their conference "Kiwi PyCon". That's OK with me too. > > EuroPython remains special, however, and I doubt very much, given that > the even is run by the "EuroPython Society" that they would ever want to > become "PyCon Europe" or "PyCon EU". If you want to avoid treading on > toes don't worry about the naming, simply acknowledge that EuroPython > started about six months before PyCon (US) did. > > As its founder I think PyCon in the US deserves to use the name without > any suffix simply by virtue of its pre-emininence in terms of both size > and longevity, and I don't think this would ruffle any feathers with the > other national conferences. I'd be happy for someone to forward this > message to the conferences discussion list (of which I am not a member) > to see whether or not I am correct. > > regards > Steve > -- > Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119 > Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/ > Watch PyCon on video now! http://pycon.blip.tv/ > > _______________________________________________ > PyCon-organizers mailing list > PyCon-organizers at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pycon-organizers > > ----- End forwarded message ----- > _______________________________________________ > Conferences mailing list: Conferences at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/conferences > > This is an open list with open archives; sensitive or confidential > information should not be discussed here. -- Giovanni Bajo Develer S.r.l. http://www.develer.com