[Inpycon] venue

[Kenneth Gonsalves]

hi,

as you all know one principle we have been working on is to rotate the
conference around India - so that it slowly establishes itself as a
genuine all-India conference. To this end I was very vocal in
campaigning the cause of Chennai, and it was finally decided to hold the
next edition in Chennai. I was keen of Chennai since I, Jaganadh and
Rajeswari were there and we were sure we could easily make the
conference happen. Unfortunately, Jaganadh and I moved to the Coimbatore
region and Rajeswari is getting married, and it looks like nothing is
happening on the Chennai end. We had fixed a deadline of December 20th
for fixing the venue. It is february and we do not even have a short
list - and dates are not fixed. If things do not happen fast, we will
not be able to get foreign delegates or even tie up sponsors. We are
talking to people, but they need to finalise their budgets before 31st
March and we are looking a bit silly when we do not have either a date
or a venue.

In this context I hereby propose Coimbatore as an alternate venue. We do
not have a python users group in coimbatore, but the up and coming
Coimbatore LUG is heavily python oriented, and can take up the job. We
have excellent relationships with the management and staff of several
colleges/universities and are spoilt for choice for a venue. As for
climate, infrastructure, accomodation, international airport and
accessibility, Coimbatore is on par with any other major city - with the
distinction that distances are less. With the new superfast trains it is
a stone's throw from Bangalore and Chennai - the major sources of
delegates and also it is very convenient for access from the big surge
of interest in python throughout Kerala.

If we can take a decision on this I can assure you that we can fix the
venue and dates by the 20th of feb and move on to more important things.
I realise I am stepping on some Chennai toes in proposing this, but the
long silence from that end is not encouraging at all.

Thoughts?
-- 
regards
Kenneth Gonsalves