Organisatie DrupalCamp & Drupal Dev Days

Ik kan eventueel mensen oppikken in Gent. Om hoe laat beginnen we? 19u?

The text in English:

===
On the 4 and 5th February 2011 there will be a Drupal event with an
international callout, probably at the VUB. There may also be a smaller
event in Novemeber or December. To get the discussions and organising
started there will an initial meeting on Tuesday September 7th at the
Brasserie Cultus in Mechelen.

Everyone interested in helping organise these events is invited.

Sorry if the location is too far away from you. It is not possible to
find somewhere that is easy for everyone to reach. Better locations for
next time always welcome.
===

Translated by Ekes

Vanuit antwerpen kan ik ook volk meepakken.

roel

What you missed until so far:

- Local Drupal Community Leaders met at a dinner on Wednesday in Copenhagen to discuss local Drupal events

- Drupal Devs Days Brussels event was announced for 4/5 februari 2011 (coincciding with Fosdem 2011) at closing "ceremony" of Drupalcon on Thursday

- In CPH we had a meeting on Thursday with 20+ Belgians & Belgium-lovers (we should try to figure out the exact list of participants) about the organisation of a Drupalcamp and the Drupal dev days. In the end of the meeting it was voted to organize both a Camp and a Dev Days event. There was also plenty of disagreement on many things, but above all about the decision to announce a Dev Days event

- On Friday I contacted Mixel, who works at the VUB, about using the VUB facilities for the 4/5 Feb event

- On Friday I spoke with the organizers of Dev Days Munchen (May 2010). They said that, despite the name, their Dev Days event was no different from any other European Drupalcamp and that the programme of the Dev Days contained many non-developer sessions. Good to know is that many of the Munchen Dev Days sessions were in German (http://www.drupal-dev-days.de/en/program).

- On Saturday I was on the plane with Mixel, and again we discussed again the 4/5 Feb event

- On Sunday Mixel got back to me & Kristof with the news that Els would be interested in coordinating the organisation of the event

- On Monday Kristof announced two more organizers: Antje and Ekes from Amsterdam.

- On Monday Els got feedback from the VUB: 4/5 feb are free but we need to define the event very well to get a price quote

So things are moving fast. I hope not too fast for the Sep 7 meeting

And with that, as far as I'm concerned, you are now up to date

The list of participants of the Copenhagen meeting (Thursday 26):

(from the top of my head, so errors guaranteed)

Kristof van Tomme
Bart Haedens
Olivier Jacquet
Boris Doesborg
Jean Francois Hovinne (Vox Teneo)
Matthieu Levet (DZLV)
Gilles Bailleux
Hans Rossel (Koba)
Floris (Bimit)
Sven Decabooter + collega ?
Bruno De Bondt (Krimson)
Stijn Vanden Brande (Krimson)
Antonio De Marco (Nuvole) + collega

And many more, so please add names

If these people are willing to help out with organisation then this will become the easiest Drupal event . ever

I don't know what the agenda is but I have one item for it:

I don't want 2 Drupalcamp-like events in short span of a couple of months. I'm afraid that with our busy lives we do not spend enough time on both to make them a sucsess.

Therefore I propose to simply call the 4/5 Feb-event a "Drupalcamp". With a similar program to the other Belgian Drupalcamps of Gent and Louvainlaneuvve. This Drupalcamp should be open ansd accessible for everyone: Developers, Themers, Noobs and Ubernoobs like project managers and CEO's. Sessions should be in the language that the presenter prefers: English, Dutch, French, Basque: whatever he thinks that appeals to an audience. It is up to the organizers to create an interesting programme from the session-proposals.

I find the idea of Dev Days events, purely for Developers, elitist: I never programmed a line of code in my entire life, so am i not welcome?. I also dont think it is realistic to expect to have a programme that appeals only to Developers. The Munchen-case confirms this. I dont like the name "Dev Days" as people envision something very Devvy in contrast to the much more neutral name "Drupalcamp". I think this (and every) Drupal-event should be open (and offer interesting sessions) to everybody despite their skills, background, language, job, gender, hair color (if any) and sexual preferences (if any) .

So: to keep a long story short:
2 events: I'm out
1 events: I'm in

Is er qua zoeken van een datum rekening gehouden met het feit dat je een dag overlap hebt met Fosdem ?

Dit heeft uiteraard zijn voor en nadelen ...

I'm not a developer, but still I like the idea of at least having a dev track, Drupalcamps are growing all the time and having a more focussed camp will make it easier to get people from abroad to attend.

I think the proposal to just let people give sessions in whatever language they want could be a cool idea, it could be a great publicity stunt, but than we need loads of smaller rooms. Maybe we should call it babelcamp than though :)

However again, I think we should stick with at least 1 full english track (maybe the dev track)?

What we could do to reduce complexity and preparation is have 1 english curated dev track that we publish asap, combined with a babel-bar-and-open-space-camp? Focus could be on getting people started with Drupal development (whatever that means) in whatever language they speak...

I can help organizing this event (website, ...). But I won't make it to the first meeting because I'm on holidays. Maybe a next meeting?

If I can be of any assistance.

Hello, we are willing to help out in any way, and will attend next Tuesday's meeting.
We can help out for the organization, website(s), sponsorship, and also for the venue.

About the 1 or 2 events debate: I'm for a dev-specific one, and another more general, open to anyone interested in Drupal - and I thought we voted for that - but perhaps I'm wrong?

BTW: Our offices in Schaerbeek are available for meetings. We have different room sizes, wifi, kitchen, garden, etc.
BTW2: Thank you for speaking English, that's really appreciated :)

First of all, THANK YOU to the dynamic Drupal flamish community to speak english in this thread. For all those who did not attend the meeting at the DrupalCon, here is a little recap:

1. There were 100 people at the DC LLN and 200 people at DC Ghent; most of the attendees were talended developers. The idea for DC Brussels is to reach 500 decision makers: as you can see, this is clearly another audience. How can we reach them? By offering them a wide range of showcases: media websites, institutional websites, e-commerce websites, etc. Because of the wide variety of showcases and Drupal shops (see below), each decision maker will find exactly what he is looking for.

2. The usual sponsorship system (with platinum, gold, silver and bronze fees) leaves a lot of small guys aside. The idea here is to gather all Drupal shops and freelancers with a single small fee. If everybody jumps in the boat (I mean if we are 30 or so), we will reduce costs for the T-shirts and stuff. We could also ask external players to sponsor: Eric (Development Seed) has already agreed to sponsor and I believe that Roel can ping Dries to have Acquia backing us.

3. The most important point is that we can make the hell of a good communication to the media about this DC: "Wanna meet YOUR Drupal shop/developer? Right, they are ALL coming to the DC Brussels". I truly believe we can make this DC a success if everybody joins the organization.

Hey everybody,

As Boris mentioned - the event will be probably organized at the VUB.

So, I've checked with the VUB 'Facility Management' for the (pré-)reservation of the venue: the 4th and 5th February are available!

I also gathered a list of the several auditory and smaller rooms that we can rent - with prices, facilities (and additional map). Note that the VUB 'Facility Management' charges 3 price rates, which depends on the type of organizer (internal/external) and (of course) timeframe (hour/period). Because the subject of our Drupal event(s) suits the education and research mission of the MOSI department (Faculty Economics VUB) - we managed to gain the interest of the head of the MOSI department (prof. dr. E. Van Dyck): MOSI/VUB can/will be the host for our event! So, if the main organizers agree with this location, we rent the venue and other services (catering, cleaning) as an internal organizer with a price rate 'I & II - diensten van de VUB'.

Other pro-items for this location:

* catering can be done as well by the VUB: lunches, coffee breaks, ...

* distance from/to the ULB FOSDEM/VUB is doable:
- by foot - 30 min
- bike - 10 min - there're several "Villo!-stations" nearby: s.a. Etterbeek railway-station, corner ULB campus
- by car - 5 min - however here's an item that I still need to tackle: only cars with registered number plates gain access to the VUB campus... (note that the request should be a part of the subscription process)

* several auditory and smaller rooms situated in one building (D) with toilets, great hall (sponsors!), ... Here the suggestion to the main organizers, to meet up shortly before/after the 7th September - to have the opportunity to visit the building and see what the rooms look like/what their possibilities are?

Hello,

Unfortunately, I cannot come this Tuesday 7th.
But I really hope to come to the next meetings, and of course I will be to the Drupalcamp and Drupal Dev days (with my photo camera ... are you surprised ?)

http://culbutte.be/content/reunion-preparation-3eme-drupalcamp-bruxelles

;-)

Good goal, to try to attract people from the outer circle, into the Drupal-community.
In my humble opinon, the amazing, fascinating Drupal-project is still quiet small in the big world.

Uh, what is the address where we meet?
Did you google on "brasserie cultus machelen"?
I had better results on "brasserie kultus machelen". I think we will meet at:
"DE KULTUS Brasserie-Feestzaal, Leuvensesteenweg 29, 0493 69 10 70"
(Or was I just too lazy to go through all comments, nodes and other technical stuff???)

To all tonight's attendants:

Please read all of the above carefully and read the agenda:

https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1Xy2UVCjuHB7ayWOIsAzES3IHKL3qaxRL4pqIPjk0SD4&hl=en&authkey=CLPLqbkI

People

Have a good meeting this evening, I can't be there because I'm in Pisa, but I'll be with you people in spirit.

cheers,
Mixel

As agreed tonight I registered drupaldays.com drupaldays.org and drupaldays.be

Report of the meeting here: https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=15Wz1uVUoJigdL0zWujB5mvEC81UQMhNdeg5mE2tC49A&hl=en&authkey=CLie5uYC

List of volunteers (please add e-mail address!): https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AopGc9qQdcc7dGFkNVBCekIxc2oyOGtHZzhuMGxja0E&hl=en&authkey=CLCFusQN

I'd like to apologise for my absence on Tuesday.
(couldn't make it to Machelen in time...it'd have taken too long by public transport)

I've put my name on the Google Docs list for the Drupal Days.

CU,

RPC

Hey guys, I'm sorry if I was not able to attend the meeting, I was out of the country for work. Nevertheless I've been contacting a Coffee-car company (similar to the one we had at DrupalCon) and they could be interested in being present at the event. If you guys want I can arrange that, just let me know.

Antonio

and with those wise words we can close this thread