YAPC::Europe::2006
30th August - 1st September 2006
Birmingham, UK
Welcome to our third official bulletin, from the organisers of the 2006
YAPC::Europe Perl Conference in Birmingham.
==== Call For Papers ====
So we've sorted the dates, we have a venue (more on that soon), we're
looking at accommodation, and hopefully we've now got many of you
champing at the bit to register, but we also need some speakers...
* Proposal Submission Deadline: Friday, 2nd June 2006
* Papers/Slides for Proceedings: Friday, 21st July 2006
The theme for this year's conference is "The Accessibility of Perl",
which we hope will inspire submissions for this and related topics. If
Perl has helped you or your company in enabling access, whether that is
in terms of website accessibility and applications or even education
and services, we'd like to hear about it. Although this is our main
topic for the conference, it will not be the only one, and as such we
will also be accepting talks on topics on just about any theme.
Please submit your proposals to talks...birmingham2006.com no later than
midnight GMT on Friday 2nd June 2006.
Each submission should be for only one talk (although multiple
submissions are welcome), and include:
* a brief bio
* the talk title
* the proposed length for the talk
* a brief description of the talk.
An outline of the main points can also be helpful, and is required for
tutorial proposals.
All accepted speakers, except lightning talk only speakers, will have
their registration fee waived.
We will be offering a number of time-slots for talks:
* Standard: 20 minutes (the preferred format)
* Long: 40 minutes
* Short Tutorial: 60-90 minutes
* Standard Tutorial: 3 hours (including break)
The preferred format is a 20 minute talk. It is expected that the
majority of talks will be of this length.
Long talks are reserved for experienced speakers covering large topics.
If you have an in-depth topic you would like to present in some detail,
perhaps with considerable discussion, a double-slot may be available.
However you should also consider splitting it into two standard talks
(perhaps an introduction and a more advanced talk).
Short tutorials are available for classes where there are distinct
levels of presentation, such as introductory, intermediary and expert
levels.
Half-day tutorials tend to cover a wide range of material on a certain
aspect of Perl programming. For example, an XML tutorial could cover
XML basics, to writing XML, to parsing XML, to practical uses of XML.
Conference organisers reserve the right to change the length assigned
to a talk, if deemed appropriate.
Lightning talks will be a feature of the conference, but should not be
submitted yet. Details of how to submit these will follow in due
course.
We are aiming to notify speakers, as to whether their talks are
accepted or not, around mid June. In the event we are deluged with
talks, we may ask whether we can hold some talks in reserve in the
event of any unforeseen rescheduling.
==== Call for Stuff ====
Lanyards!
We are hoping to issue all attendees with id badges, and would like
some lanyards so that people can wear them, rather than pin them on.
We would prefer not to spend you attendee fees on them, so we are
looking for a company who can supply them as part of a sponsorship
package. Company branding is fine, but it must be all above board. If
you work for or know a company who could supply us with 250-300
lanyards, ask them to get in touch.
Bags!
Conference bags are always a bit of a minefield. Despite some great
efforts by previous conferences to provide good bags to collect all
your conference goodies in, they are a huge expense compared to
the other merchandise. So once again we are looking for a company
that can provide us with 250-300 conference bags. Again company
branding is fine, and if we can get our logo/name on there too, even
better. So if you work for or know a company that can help, please
send them our way.
==== Introducing The Team ====
Four of the organisers for YAPC::Europe::2006 were present in Braga
last year, along with several other members of Birmingham.pm. In
addition to the organisational team, we are forming a loyal band of
volunteers, who will all be working very hard behind the scenes to
bring you a very enjoyable and educational conference next year. Let
us begin by introducing ourselves.
Our Project Manager and Leader, already well known in the Perl
community, is Barbie. Barbie founded Birmingham Perl Mongers in
September 2000, and has been the group leader ever since. He has worked
tirelessly to promote Birmingham.pm and has been helping to raise
awareness of UK Perl Monger user groups in general. Organising social
meetings and technical meetings for the group, as well as the planning
meetings for YAPC::Europe::2006. He has spoken at several international
YAPC Perl Conferences, authored over 20 Perl modules on CPAN, and taken
part in many Perl projects.
*
http://birmingham.pm.org/cgi-bin/br...archname=barbieNext up is Brian McCauley, aka NoBull. Brian is our venue,
accommodation & entertainment liaison, plus our health and safety
advisor seeing as he also volunteers for the St John's Ambulance
Service (basically he gets into gigs free ;)). He has presented at the
last 2 YAPC::Europe Perl conferences and at many local technical
meetings, and is also a CPAN author. He can often be found on usenet
digging up material for his series of "Usenet Gems" presentations.
*
http://birmingham.pm.org/cgi-bin/br...earchname=brianOther introductions, both of organisers and press-ganged members, will
appear in future announcements.
==== Contact ====
Should you wish to contact us, there is an email address available for
direct contact, where you can mail us with your questions and
suggestions. The address is: organisers...birmingham2006.com. There is
also the regular YAPC::Europe conference mailing list
(
http://lists.yapceurope.org/mailman...nfo/conferences), which is
open to all.
That's all for this release. Look out for more news and announcements
in the future.
Thanks,
The Birmingham 2006 Organisers
http://birmingham.pm.org