[pycon-za] Recent PyCon ZA activity

[Simon Cross]

Greetings

Wendy from Speakers Corner has been hard at work canvassing venues and
drawing up a budget for us. Lauren, Sam and I looked at The (BMW)
Pavilion this afternoon. It looks like an awesome venue for PyCon and
hopefully we'll get a concrete budget and a yes or a no from Gustav
over the weekend or early next week.

I also want to make everyone aware that some of the plans are being
changed to fit the venue and budget requirements. It's nothing too
drastic -- I just don't want anyone to be taken by surprise if what we
present to the list early next week isn't exactly what's in the
planning document. I'd liked to have included more people in the
discussions but given now quickly we're trying to get this off the
ground, it's not really possible.

I've drafted a letter to send to sponsors and we'll also be drafting a
letter to send to potential big-name speakers. Expect a flurry of
activity on these fronts early next week. Contacting sponsors and
speakers is something that people on the list can potentially really
help with -- if there's a company or speaker you can help us get hold
of -- please shout.

Speaking of speakers, obviously budget for flying international
speakers here is going to be fairly limited, so we need some sort of
decision making process that will allow us to okay this sort of
expenditure. I think a small sub-committee (say three people) is
sensible way to do this?

Euan and Ruan: Could you given us an update on how the website is
doing? I know you don't have all the final information yet but I'd
like to get your thoughts on how soon after giving you a date and
venue the site can go live and whether there's anything else blocking
you?

Schiavo
Simon