[Texas] PyTexas 2012 leadership opportunity

[Brad Allen]

The Austin option sounds interesting, and I'm glad to learn you're
excited about it.

Moving to a hotel introduces a huge effort and set of costs. A
supportive university can offer a better value proposition, and in my
experience a better chance at reliable, scalable wifi.

It would be worth checking into whether UT or St. Edwards has a strong
enough interest in Python to be supportive and could reserve a large
enough room to bring all attendees together for the keynote and other
plenary activities. Do you know if those universities have Python
proponents on faculty or administration, who could champion and
support getting a nice venue for PyTexas 2012?

There was some fairly serious talk at TAMU about reserving a much
larger, nicer space for next year. Since two departments make heavy
use of Python (the IT dept and the College of Architecture), and the
TAMU Comp Sci dept actually teaches using Python, there seems to be
significant interest in hosting PyTexas again next year at TAMU.


On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 9:24 PM, Travis Swicegood <travis at domain51.com> wrote:
> Howdy all;
> Talk about timing -- emailing the list about the 2012 PyTexas has been on my
> todo list for the last day.  Guess I can mark it off now. :-)
> A few of my co-organizers for the Austin Web Python group and I would like
> to get PyTexas 2012 in Austin.  It definitely makes sense for there to be
> someone "on-the-ground" here that can deal with getting a venue squared away
> and such, so I'd be happy to step up as chair if PyTexas in Austin sounds
> like a good idea to everyone else.
> As far as the sales pitch, I think Austin needs no introduction as to what
> it can handle.  In addition to the standard mega-conferences, tx.js,
> html5.tx, and Code Works all happen here in Austin that draw similar sizes
> to what I think we could get for a PyTexas -- a few hundred devs.  We've got
> options for hotels, both UT and St. Edwards (where both Code Works and
> html5.tx were held this past year) for university options for hosting plus
> all of the traditional venues (Alamo Drafthouse, hotels, etc.).
> Thoughts?
> -T
> On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 9:07 PM, Brad Allen <bradallen137 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Would anyone like to take on the chairman role for PyTexas 2012? I
>> would like to step down and make way for the next person to take on
>> the challenge, while making myself available to help as a volunteer
>> and mentor to the next chairman.
>>
>> The chairman role going forward will hopefully be easier and require
>> less time commitment, now that the group of volunteers has grown so
>> large. For example, one person has already mentioned they could take
>> on sponsorship coordination responsibilities. There is also an
>> energetic team who has volunteered to built out additional
>> functionality in the PyTexas website.
>>
>> The next couple of months is a good time to start thinking about what
>> we want to do for PyTexas 2011. Do we want to follow the same format,
>> or possibly consider a BarCamp-style unconference? Should we plan for
>> a meeting or sprint at PyCon? Do we want to hold it in College Station
>> again this year? There was some talk about larger spaces being
>> available.
>>
>> The sooner we can establish leadership, the sooner we can make
>> important decisions which will enable a successful conference next
>> year.
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
> --
> Travis Swicegood | @tswicegood (most everywhere) | Senior Open Source
> Engineer @ Texas Tribune / Armstrong | 512.693.7051
>