YearlyKos Steering Committee

----Kascade Kat 13:23, 15 Nov 2004 (PST) - Before noon Sat, Sun; after 6 p.m. Mon - Wed. (all times PST)
----pastordan 13:42, 15 Nov 2004 (PST) - I'm afraid my time is rather limited. Saturday all day, Sunday not at all, Monday after 11:00 EST, Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning after 8:00 a.m. EST. I'll be on the road Wed.-Mon. for Thanksgiving.
Carl Nyberg - Saturday is OK. Sunday before 2 PM (Central) or after 6 PM. Monday after 10 AM. Wednesday morning works. Thursday and beyond are bad.
----Philosopher -- Most times/dates work for me. I'll try to work around other people's schedules.
----plemeljr: anytime after 19:00 EST during the week, and this weekend is no good for me. How about Tuesday night?
---- Sheabriana- Weeknights after 6pm EST except for Monday are good. Saturday from 12-8 or Sunday from 1-9.
--Elizdelphi 20:19, 15 Nov 2004 (PST) Any day, any time after 10 AM and before midnight.

To Do

--Johnowens2 16:55, 10 Nov 2004 (PST)I can throw in at least 2 beds and probably more on the North Side. Having people in a hotel might be nice, but some people will need a cheaper place to stay. I don't think finding rooms for people would be too hard for the liberal affluent communities of Evanston, Lincoln Park, Hyde Park, Rogers Park, et al. That's why chicago would work so well.

--Philosopher 11:53, 15 Nov 2004 (PST)One great option for cheap housing is the International House at the University of Chicago, in Hyde Park. It's basically a very nice hostel, and it's cheap--only $52 a day for a single.

--Kascade Kat 13:59, 10 Nov 2004 (PST)Back when the Lord of the Rings final movie was released, a group of fans got together for a conference and a movie marathon to celebrate. To get going, they asked for a small donation (I think it was $25 - someone else may remember this better) to fund their planning work until they were ready to accept registrations. It also helped them to get early commitments for attendence, which helped greatly in planning. The people who sent in this fee had it deducted from their registrations, and then they got a little something extra at the conference.

--Yamaneko 11:02, 16 Nov 2004 (PST) Hostels are fine, but perhaps we should consider setting up a database of people who would be willing to split hotel costs. This could reduce the nightly hotel expense to $50-$70 per person and only 2-4 people would need to share the bathroom.

Do you think we could ask the dKos community to help us out like this? YES - Carl Nyberg

Maybe those of you with conference planning experience could tell me if we need to add anything else?

Other possible roles:

Public Relations
Sponsorships & Fundraising
Housing Coordinator
Volunteer Coordinator
Scholarships

Kascade Kat's first things we need to do (IMHO):

Select a range of dates.
Set a target price range so that we can start budgeting.
Find someone local and reliable who can coordinate logistics for us - ideally an inexpensive "retreat center" with on-site housing.
Find a location - this may take some time.

(I left a message with Annette Jobs of North Park U-Carl Nyberg)

fabooj -

I can help with any of the above, especially PR, housing and the VC part. We could write an ad to run on craigslist, HitchHikers.org, Tribe.Net, Friendster and/or MeetUp to get more free or reduced housing/transportation.
Also in regard to sponsorships, both me and my husband can most likely offer our separate businesses as sponsors (probably at a "bronze" or "silver" level). In planning these events, I usually write that the sponsors has to donate so much of something, like pens or notepads that will go into the swag-bags.
We should also consider on-site childcare and events for those of us with older children. I have links.
We'll also need to pin down the Skill/Time Volunteers, such as;
Graphic Artists
PR specialists
Special Event Specialists
Printers
Photographers/videographers

My email is anika [at] anikascreations [dot] com (anika@anikascreations.com)

Elizabeth D - I suggest that we do as much as possible to help those attending on a shoestring by choosing an affordable and accessible hotel with affordable food options nearby, offer help in matching roommates and rides, and keep the attendence fee low by keeping overall costs down and finding sponsors. elizabeth (at) qui-gonline (dot) org

cbal - I'm in to help as well, especially with PR (it's part of what I do now, and I live in Chitown). To add something to your list, we'll need speaker coordinators as well, when the time comes. This is another thing I'm happy to help with. We will probably need to have a better idea of things like, you know, when, where and how many, but I'm thinking there are any number of local people we could get in there.

Philosopher - I definitely would like to help, if I can, although I don't live in Chicago any more. As someone who has organized a big conference before, my suggestion is that we reserve a location as soon as possible. Conference locations usually get booked months in advance. If we go the hotel route, it can be very expensive--we might want to consider a university or an alternative venue to keep costs down. In terms of a to-do list, here are some things we need to think about:

date (is May 20 definite, now?)
location
reserve hotel rooms (hostel rooms and other places to crash can be dealt with later)
come up with a budget and figure out how to pay for the conference. do you charge a reservation fee? solicit donations on dKos? if you invite speakers, do you pay for their airfare? give them an honorarium?
agenda/speakers (we're already working on this)
figure out who will be organizing the logistics in Chicago--by this I mean things like signs, placards, name badges, microphones, etc. I would make this a separate committee, because a lot of that stuff really can't be done effectively from far away.

Volunteers

Logistics

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This page was last modified 04:05, 9 March 2008 by dKosopedia user Gcs. Based on work by Chad Lupkes and dKosopedia user(s) Sheabriana, Czawadzki, Plemeljr, Chicagochristianleft, Yamaneko, Elizdelphi, KascadeKat, Philosopher, Fabooj, Kimberly Stone, Carl Nyberg and Jk minnesota. Content is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

YearlyKos Steering Committee

Contents

Organizers for Phase 2

Steering Committee Phase 1

Sub groups

Speakers Group

Agenda Group

PR/Communications Group

Budget/Location Group

Workshops Group

Important Dates

Steering Team Teleconference Availability (11/20 - 11/26)

To Do

Volunteers

Logistics