In case you don’t know who I am, my name is Monnie – I am the lead organiser of BarCamp Adelaide, and also brought Cupcake Camp Adelaide to life.

This is where I’m going to be frankly honest with anyone who is interested in attending another BarCamp in Adelaide. There just wasn’t enough interest for when we started discussing it.

For the first BarCamp, we set ourselves an impossible task and organised it from the starting date of December 1st to the event on Feb 20. I wasn’t happy with all of it. We had to change venues at almost the last minute because of lack of interest and company sponsorship, and I also definitely was disappointed we had to charge for entry. These are all things we are working on changing this time around.

We also concluded that because of all the festivals on at this time of year, it isn’t really the best idea to have it now. So we’re pushing it back a couple of months. Trying to fit this kind of event in amongst all of the lovely Adelaide Fringe and Festival events, Clipsal 500, a State Election and more is impossible to pull off successfully. We are aiming for May/June at this stage.

The other thing that has caused us to push this back was the lack of interest for the planning meeting we last had. Five people turned up and we have apparently got a group base of almost 100 people. I’ve had a lot of criticism that’s assumed incorrectly I’m the only one running this show and that is exactly what I don’t want to be doing – you all make this event, it’s an interactive conference more than people paid to attend. That’s not the show we’re aiming for.

So here’s the action plan: In late March we will be holding another planning meeting, and for the hope of the event, I hope more than five people attend this time. It is important that everyone contributes and writes and speaks to people to get others involved. We’ve got a list of who we should be contacting but we want everyone in to help out. 2010 can be a fantastic BarCamp – there is a very strong Adelaide Twitter userbase now along with more and more networking connection opportunities that no one should miss out on attending.

We may combine a discussion of BarCamp planning into the next Adelaide Twitter Meet in the last week of March, but any possible organisation meetings will be published here.

Thanks for your patience, and hopefully we can meet and discuss things then.

- Monnie

The link to the poll is here: http://twtpoll.com/ouj0cw.

This poll is open until November 23rd as after this another IRC discussion will be held to start dividing up the responsibility of who contacts which sponsor and who is responsible for what etc.

As we mentioned in the last post, there are three possible dates:

• February 20
• March 6
• March 27

March 20 was looking to be the ideal date as we picked some dates that didn’t clash with anything.. Until we saw that it clashed with the 2010 South Australian state election. Whoops.

March 6 is in the middle of the Fringe and Womadelaide is also on over that weekend, and March 27 is when the Relay For Life is on. Besides this, there are no other major clashes for these three dates. They are all Saturdays, so go ahead and vote on which one you’d prefer!

Final Reflection of the last BarCamp:

Problems were:

• Space (now being sorted with new venue)
• Time (each session will stick to strict time limits)
• Internet (many people who can organise this if needed)
• Building Access (also a new venue)

List of businesses we could potentially approach for involvement in 2010

• Internode (expressed interest in 09)
• ElectraNet (as above)
• Optus/Vodafone/Telstra
• O’Reilly Publishing
• ACP Publishing`
• Google/Yahoo/Microsoft
• Print Media (Messenger, Advertiser, APC Magazine etc)
• Dymocks

If sponsors would like to come along, this is fine, however

• We’d prefer techies rather than marketing people from any sponsors who would like to send someone to present.
• This doesn’t mean they can’t send someone along, they just need to be mindful of how they deliver their presentation.
• We’d love to have reps from companies that don’t choose to sponsor us
• General consensus amongst us is marketing people will cause attendees to feel like they are being sold something, which is not the aim of BarCamp
• We’d like to hear about how they developed the product more than what it costs on a 24 month contract (as an example).

We would also like to invite other organisations such as non-profits and charities to share with us how they are using the internet to complement their work.

Your Feedback Required: Should we have sponsorship packages drawn up (ie, $xxx gets you this), or alternatively name things we require or would like to have, and organisations can sponsor specific areas. (?)

Supplies

Things we need / would be excellent at BarCamp

• T-Shirts (maybe these can have the sponsors names on them?)
• Pens / Paper (maybe also supplied by one of the sponsors, with their branding)
• Company goodies! Maybe USB sticks or some cool little cheap gadgets. Last year we had lanyards, maybe we could do something similar again, still some left over (we think).
• Whiteboard for open grid scheduling at the beginning of the day
• Projector or large screen for Twitter wall (tracking BarCamp Adelaide tweets #bcad)
• Food and drink for the day. If this includes liquor for post-BarCamp mingling, we may need a license for that (apparently ~$35)
• Other things that aren’t currently listed.. but I’m sure we’ll think of it

Date

Avoiding all the major events in the first quarter of the year (one is in the middle of the Fringe, but BarCamp is on during the day so it shouldn’t be a huge problem).

Other Saturdays in this area have the Clipsal 500 (13th March) and the SA State Election (20th March) which are probably good to avoid.

Here’s the three potential dates and the events that these Saturdays share:

• February 20th
• March 6th (same time as Womadelaide, Fringe and Arts Festivals)
• March 27th (Relay For Life)

BarCamp Adelaide will run from 9am-5pm with drinks and games etc after 5pm. Registration will be at 9am sharp this year and sessions will commence at 9:30am.

That’s about it – we would love your feedback and suggestions to add to this discussion list, please leave your comments on this post!

CodeFire are graciously letting us use their offices for the day which is fantastic – this puts us in a great position for organisation of the next event.

If you are free on November 2nd, why not come along to a BarCamp Planning Meeting? Have a coffee or a drink with us and discuss some potential sponsors and plans for the day. Have a look at the Facebook invite at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=171787248144 and follow our updates on Twitter at @barcampadl.

See you there!

• Last BarCamp was well worth it, still talking about it now, had a great time.
• What people are coming to BarCamp to get out of it, and the majority said to network and meet people. They usually attract people working in or interested in IT and the Internet in general
• The presentation format of last year. Everyone discussed changing the three areas to themed rooms, for example: “Internet and Cloud, Business and Marketing, Programming and Publishing”
• Keeping sessions strictly on time
  • <omegatron> “I think a big part of what I liked about last year was that I was exposed to things that I’d never really even given much thought before.. got to hear things from people in areas that are nothing like mine.”
• Possibly recording all sessions and having them available after BarCamp so that people who missed that particular session while being in another one could catch up
  • <kwak83> “id like to see the topics uploaded to a common area so any supporting text files or links can be found after the event? (maybe something for web devs to make up)”
• Attendance should be free or a smaller amount (maybe donation based), possibly waive for Students/Under 18
  • <andymurd> “I’d vote for free entry with costs picked up by sponsors. People wanting to contribute should give time/food/stuff.”
• PayPal is still a good option even with processing fees
  • <@Monnie> what we want out of barcamp is a venue, internet access, some goodies, maybe tshirts and what not, and some food/drinks
• Hold BarCamp either in late Feb or late March (missing all Adelaide festivals and events)
• Meeting on November 2 at possibly the Griffins Head at 7pm
• Logo was loved by all, so we’re going with it! Thanks guys!