Fwd: 2014 Announcement (Corrected Dates)

[Lee Irving]

Just in case you missed it

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "alancfrancis" <alancf...@gmail.com>
Date: 20 Aug 2013 11:50
Subject: 2014 Announcement (Corrected Dates)
To: <scottishrub...@googlegroups.com>
Cc:

Mark your diaries.  Next year’s Scottish Ruby Conference will happen on Monday 12th and Tuesday 13th of May.

And yes, we're back at Crieff  Hydro.

Although there were some issues there at the 2013 conference, and it was harder for us as organisers, the feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive and the vibe of a residential conference was hard to ignore.

We've addressed the two main issues we had in the 2013 conference, mostly by just getting organised *much* earlier.

 First, Accommodation

We have moved the conference to a Monday/Tuesday.  This avoids the "arriving on a saturday splits our busy weekend" problem the Hydro had. That means we have a full allocation of rooms available for all three nights - arrive Sunday, stay Monday and Tuesday, home wednesday.  No more having to find a Saturday room and getting an early bus.   

We're also opening of ticket sales *much* sooner.  We have block booked rooms for all three nights and that block booking is guaranteed until January 31st 2014.  The Hydro assures us that the dates we have picked (and avoiding Saturday) make it very likely that even after Jan 31st, delegates should have no trouble getting a room for conference.

Second, Transport

After the Royal College fell through last year, we were left with a very short amount of time to organise what is, for us, a remote location. We were in kind of a chicken and egg with the buses, trying to figure out who already had flights booked, and how we could work buses around people.  This meant there was a lot of uncertainty on the buses until the last minute.  We also didn't want to lay on buses we didn't use (due to the aforementioned hotel-room-related cash-tightness). 

This year we'll be booking and organising buses MUCH earlier so will be able to tell you (probably in january, 4 months notice) exactly when and where the coaches will be.

Oh, tickets

After the 2009 conference feedback was so positive that we were able to open 100 2010 tickets for sale months after the conference and sell out.  No announced speakers, just a date, a venue, and the promise of 3 tracks and 2 days of amazing talks.

We're confident enough in the feedback from the 2013 conference that we've decided to do the same again this year.

A small number of Super-Advanced Early Bird Saver tickets will be available at noon on Wednesday 21st August via our new ticketing partner Tito. 

Follow us on Twitter, or sign up to the google group to keep up to date.

So.  For those of you that came last year and had the best ScotRuby ever, and those of you that missed it, and of course those of you who've never experienced all the things that make ScotRuby legendary, we hope we'll see you in May!

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