[CREATE] Let's get this show on the road

[David Neary]

Salut Louis,

Louis Desjardins wrote:
> Michel Dagenais advices that we would need to set an organization as 
> quick as possible to have access to sponsors which budgets are 
> established months ahead.

For information, I did all of my fundraising in November and December, 
by Christmas I was 90% settled. And HP will definitely be on board next 
year, given the reaction we got this year. IBM were also annoyed that I 
didn't ask them for money - so perhaps fundraising isn't the issue you 
think it is.

> I am ready to help this organization, to coordinate some of the action 
> but cannot do that on my own. I will need people that have experience 
> dealing with this kind of event. And of course, infos on how it was done 
> in Lyon!

I can send you the rough list of stuff I did for the conference (or that 
I asked others to do) - the general gist is:

1. Sort out dates, location, main contact at location.
2. Start working on a website, and contact all of the relevant project's 
homepages - don't forget the local LUG.
3. Finish working on the website :) Finalise a schedule (I finalised 
this early, around the end of November, after that was minor reworking). 
Write a shortish sponsors document to give an overview of the goals of 
the event (this was important for the first one); start working sponsors
4. Solicit requests for travel expenses once you have a weak idea of the 
budget (you don't need solid confirmations, just a sane estimate of how 
much you think you'll get)
5. Start working on press - your sponsors document becomes a press 
document, work with the university's PR people, get the projects doing 
some press for you.
6. Start work with the local LUG on final preparations - conference 
attendee packs, maps, accommodation options, meal/party, etc. Start 
reimbursing people's travel. Someone with an administrator to help out 
with this is essential.
7. Have the conference
8. Pay for everything
9. goto 1.

> Any more thoughts? worries? questions? etc.

Sounds OK to me - the change of timescale may not suit some people, but 
I'm easy.

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
Dave Neary
bolsh at gimp.org
Lyon, France