Plone Conference 2010

The Eighth Annual Plone Conference · October 25–31, 2010 · Bristol, UK

The Plone Conference 2010 website is now live and all up to date information can be found there at http://www.ploneconf2010.org

Welcome to Bristol!

In recent years Bristol has had one of the largest city delegations attending the Plone Conference, and every year (usually after a few beers) we keep saying it would be great to hold the Plone Conference in the UK.  Well, we've finally risen to the challenge — Netsight Internet Solutions are pleased to announce the 2010 Plone conference in Bristol, United Kingdom.

Bristol is one of a group of English core cities and the most popular city in the South West of England. Bristol is ranked amongst the top three English cities after London. It is the largest centre of culture, employment and education in the region. There is so much to see, do and experience in Bristol and the city accommodates for all tastes and preferences.

It is the birthplace of the Concorde, Massive Attack and the National Cycle Network, the home of Rolls Royce, famous Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, clay heros Wallace and Gromit and artist Banksy. It was also the starting point for John Cabot on his voyage to discover the New World.

To find out more about Bristol check out the Visit Bristol site.

Conference Vision and Goals

Bristol is an ideal location to host the annual Plone Conference 2010 both for those coming from Europe and also from further afield such as the US.

We plan to invest time heavily into marketing the UK Plone conference. Within Bristol we hope to drum up publicity from the local media as well as aiming to promote Plone to Local Government's and other contacts within organisations that we have. We will be encouraging other UK Plone development companies to invite along clients using Plone and potential clients wishing to learn more about Plone.

Holding the conference in the UK, Netsight aim to increase the UK Plone community and encourage more developers to join, we also hope to reinforce to many organisations why Open Source and in particular Plone is the best solution for many web based projects.

The main goals and objectives for hosting the conference in Bristol are:

• To promote Plone & Open Source in the UK & Bristol and use the conference as a marketing opportunity to reach out to organisations.
• To promote python in the UK and encourage more developers into the community and Plone.
• To put Bristol on the map in terms of Plone development.

Conference Dates

The planned main conference dates will be from the 27^th - 29^th October 2010.

We will also be arranging for training before and sprints after the event. We also plan for an analyst day prior to the main conference:

Conference Venue

We have found a great venue within the city, details will follow shortly.

Pre-Conference Training and Post-Conference Sprint

We will be providing a venue for the pre-conference training and also post-conference sprint. This is likely to be The Watershed, a local media arts venue with room for up to 200 people.

Analyst / Customer (‘Suits’) Day

Historically, the Plone Conference has been a great event for the community as a whole, but we'd like to also try and market Plone to the wider business community. We are planning on having a one-day 'mini-conference' before the main conference starts that will be aimed specifically at getting industry analysts and customers (from any company) to come along and find out more about Plone. We hope to run a single track with case studies and business talks for speakers specifically invited from the community who have delivered case-study talks previously.

Registration Fees

We aim to have a registration fee of no more than £300. There will be a reduction on the registration fee for early birds that register before September 1st.

Meals

Lunch and coffee breaks will be provided on each of the days of the conference. We will also provide a list of recommended restaurants & cafe's in the vicinity of the hotel.

Network Access

We know how important the wifi access is at the Plone conference. This year the wifi access for the event will be provided by Wyn Williams, who ran the very successful conference wifi network in Budapest for Plone Conf 2009. This will be in conjunction with Bristol Wireless, a community wifi provider; and the Bristol Media Exchange (BMEX), a high speed fibre optic network in the city.

Videography

We plan to partner with local film post-production and equipment hire company, Films@59 to provide video recording equipment and staff to record all of the talks during the event.

Organisers

The following people will be leading the organisation of the conference:

• Matt Hamilton from Netsight Internet Solutions. He is on the board of the Plone Foundation and has attended all but the first Plone Conference, and spoken at almost all of them. In 2009 Matt was the chair of the Programme Committee and was responsible for organising the talks and timetable for the Plone Conference 2009, he also coordinated the Open Spaces day. He knows all community members and having attended nearly every conference knows what works and what doesn't.
• Chris Green from Netsight Internet Solutions. Chris is the Operations Director of Netsight Internet Solutions and will be in charge of all of the finances associated with the organisation of the conference.
• Astra Fowden from Netsight Internet Solutions. Astra is the Business Development Manager at Netsight, she will be devoting the majority of her time to organising and coordinating the conference, including social events in the evenings. She has organised a number of events in the past including Bristols World Plone day 2009.
• Vik Hamilton from Netsight. Vik is in charge of the organisation of all administration and some financial aspects at Netsight. She will also be devoting the majority of her time to the organisation of the conference to ensure the smooth running of every aspect of the event.

During the preparation period we will be seeking help from other local UK Plone Development companies. We will also consider any suggestions from other Plone companies or from members of the Plone foundation.

Environmental Protection

Netsight will seek to take special care to ensure the environment is affected as little as possible by this conference. We will endeavour to recycle any waste where possible and promote environmentally healthy ways of commuting in and around the city.

Plone Community Party

We will be organising a party for the conference attendees, the price of which will be included in the registration fee. The planning for this event is currently in the early stages, however we hope to hire a unique venue with a buffet and band.

Getting Here

Bristol is easily accessible by Air, Train, Car and Coach. The airport is 15 minutes away from the venue by road and busses run into the centre on a regular basis. Bristol has two major railway stations — Bristol Parkway and Bristol Temple Meads, Temple Meads is a 4 minute drive from the venue and the Coach station is a 2 minute drive from the venue.

Travel to Bristol by Air

Bristol International Airport is a hub for EasyJet and Ryanair, and KLM and Air France operate flights connecting to Amsterdam and Paris, and Continental fly direct from Newark, NJ.

There are a number of airlines flying in and out of Bristol International Airport, including: Air France, Air Malta, Air Southwest, Brussels Airlines, Continental Airlines, Easyjet, Flybe, KLM, Ryanair, to name but a few!

The airport is 8 miles from the centre of Bristol and there are always taxi's and busses running into the city. The average cost of a bus ticket into the centre from the airport is £7 for a single £9 return.

For further flexibility you can also fly in to one of the London airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton) and travel by train or bus to Bristol (about 1.5 - 3 hours)

Travel to Bristol By Car or Train

The alternatives to flying to the UK include the easy, quick and comfortable Eurostar and also the Ferry.

Further Information

Further Information will be made available nearer the time, in the meantime if you have any questions or ideas, feel free to drop as an email at ploneconf2010@netsight.co.uk.