welcome; venue & schedule questions

[phoebe ayers]

Hi all,

Welcome to the WCWC11 (or West Coast WikiConference 2011) mailing list
& planning group! Hopefully you've all seen the meta page with our
proposal for the conference:
* http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_WikiConference

Choosing a January date for this fine event means that we have no less
than 8.5 months to plan this shindig. That's a fair amount of time
(thank goodness!) and I have faith that we can pull off a completely
awesome event in that timeframe. However, it's not too early to get
started.

I see three major hurdles that need to be crossed sooner rather than
later. Two are meta-planning-items and one is logistical.

1. developing a checklist -- what all do we need to take care of? What
are the parts of the conference and the conference roles that need to
be filled? There's a redlink here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_WikiConference/checklist

2. developing a planning schedule: are there deadlines for when
certain things need to be done by? A meeting schedule? redlink:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_WikiConference/schedule

3. finding a venue -- this is the single biggest logistical challenge,
especially since our requirements are fairly tight. I posted the
requirements [per discussion at Saturday's meetup] and the beginnings
of a brainstorming list here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_WikiConference/venue

Finding a venue is contingent on a lot of factors (what's available,
whether we have any money/sponsorship or not, whether the venue meets
our requirements) so I expect it to take a fair amount of time. I
don't think allotting 2 or 3 months to finding a venue is
unreasonable, but I think it should be done well before the fall (see:
yet to be developed planning schedule).

So I see a lot of tasks that need to be done by planning group members:
* brainstorm about venues (add notes & ideas to wiki page) -- please
note if you have connections with a particular venue or see some
possibilities for us to get a great venue at a low price, etc.
* develop tentative schedule
* get to work on creating the checklist & to-do list

Especially for the venue, I want to try and get ideas from as wide a
group as possible, since it's going to be a little tricky to find
something. So feel free to ask your colleagues/fellow
wikimedians/friends/etc for ideas too.

Thanks!
-- Phoebe