[Chicago] March Chipy Meeting

[Pete]

On Thursday February 21 2008 12:17:10 am Rob Kapteyn wrote:
> I think it might make sense if the ChiPy group got together ***for
> presentations*** on another day.
>
> Thursday, March 13, is the PyCon tutorial day and the Evening Session
> runs from 6:10 PM to 9:30 PM.
> I don't think we should do our own presentations in conflict with the
> PyCon schedule.

Conflicts are par for the Pycon course.  Heck, there are 4 simultaneous tracks 
of talks in the conference proper. Having the meeting concurrent with Pycon 
to be a way of adding some more local, organizing UG flavor to the event, 
which is why we were so keen on hosting to begin with (no offense Dallas).  
Also, Thursday night would give early-arrivers something to do, besides 
sitting around the hotel room watching WGN.  Finally, for those Chicagoans 
not attending Pycon (shame!) it's a chance to mingle with out-of-towners and 
get a taste of what they're missing.

> I think that ChiPy activities on Thursday evening should be dedicated
> to convention organizing -- goody bags, etc.

I think we're more likely to *get* people to the venue in the first place if 
we have a meeting, than if we simply say "please come help". Just trying to 
be realistic.

> I propose that we do a regular ChiPy meeting with presentations on the
> Thursday AFTER PyCon -- March 20th.
> That would have given us just enough time to recover, but not enough
> time to have lost the convention buzz ;-)

It'd also run up into the sprints.  Dunno if you've ever stayed for the 
sprints, but by the time I left last year, I was exahusted - "recovered" is 
about the last word I'd used for it.  Sprints aside, folks are more likely to 
be python'd-out by the next week - I'd worry that it wouldn't happen at all.  
Also, I won't be in town then. ;-)

> On second thought -- maybe we want to meet on Wednesday, the day
> before PyCon.
> We might still attract some of the early out-of-towners and get our
> goody bags done early.

Because, y'know, all our locals won't have enough last-minute work to do. ;-)  
There are going to be a lot more people in town the night before the 
conference (Thurs.) than two days before - companies tend to view this as a 
business trip.

Finally, fwiw, the Pycon organizers I've already spoken to were cool with 
having the meeting as scheduled.

--Pete

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