Community Event Planning
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Community Event Planning

About the Book

If you’ve ever thought about hosting a code sprint, hackathon, (un)conference or workshop, this book is for you. In it, we explain what you need to know to plan and execute a successful event, including:

  • assembling and organizing your planning team
  • identifying and securing a venue for your event
  • how to get money and pay for things
  • volunteer recruitment and management
  • determining your event format and creating your event’s schedule
  • advertising your event
  • tickets and registration
  • insurance, liability and what to do when things go wrong
  • deciding on must-haves and nice-to-haves (e.g., food, wifi, etc)
  • dealing with venue logistics (space, sound, power, etc.)
  • codes of conduct, after parties, considerations for serving alcohol
  • how to keep the momentum once your first event is over

About the Authors

Christie Koehler
Christie Koehler

Christie Koehler is an experienced software engineer, technical project manager, community organizer and speaker. She works at Mozilla (makers of Firefox) as a project manager on the Developer Evangelist team. Christie is Co-founder and President of the nonprofit Stumptown Syndicate, co-chair of Open Source Bridge, and co-organizer of BarCamp Portland. Additionally, Christie facilitates Code ‘n’ Splode and Women Who Hack, monthly user groups for women in technology.

Sherri Montgomery
Sherri Montgomery

Sherri Montgomery is an IT Business Systems Analyst for Mentor Graphics. As a member of the Business Intelligence team she cultivates order, grows projects, engages users, facilitates teams, coordinates testing, and strives to make huge data sets meaningful. Sherri also produces town hall events for the Mentor BI community and speaks about complex BI migrations strategies and performance tuning.

In her spare time Sherri manages conference logistics for Open Source Bridge and is co-chair for Ignite Portland. She also meditates, makes awesome vegan food, creates art for trade, teaches Hatha Yoga and hikes. Sherri can often be found teaching yoga to geeks at conferences she participates in.

Audrey Eschright
Audrey Eschright

Audrey Eschright is a programmer at Elevated Code working with Ruby, Rails, and occasionally iPhone development. Writer of essays, recipes, horror comics, and knitting patterns. Photographer working with digital and film cameras, including Polaroid, Holga, and pinholes. Community organizer of unconferences like WhereCampPDX. Core team member of the infamous Calagator. Agitator for a variety of grassroots local tech.

About the Contributors

Reid Beels
Reid Beels

Table of Contents

  • Chapter 1: Getting Started
    • Quick start guide: the essentials
    • Why do we have events?
    • Types of events
    • Sample timeline
    • Assembling and organizing your team
  • Chapter 2: Shape Your Event
    • Knowing Your Audience, Knowing Your Goals
    • From Tone to Strategy to Results
    • Fundraising
    • Marketing
    • Volunteers
    • Developing Content
  • Chapter 3: Logistics
    • What are Logistics?
    • Important Information to Track
    • Type of Event Dictates Venue
    • Participant Needs
    • Finding a Venue
    • Power
    • Network Infrastructure
    • Audio/Visual
    • Catering
  • Chapter 4: During Your Event
    • Materials List & Transportation Plan
    • Schedule Run-Down
    • On-Site Volunteers
    • Catering Assistant
    • Greeters
    • Registration Assistants
    • Floaters / General Volunteers
    • Other Volunteer Positions
    • Signage
    • Swag
    • Registration
    • Why Ask for Pre-Registration?
    • Ways to Register
    • Different Types of Badges
  • Chapter 5: Momentum
    • Communicating with attendees
    • Keeping momentum
    • Assessing your event, retrospectives
    • Wishlist for next time
    • Planning your retrospective
    • Surviving participant feedback
  • Chapter 6: A Short Guide to Problem Solving
    • Debugging Your Team and Planning Process
    • Tips to keep your team and planning process running smoothly
  • Appendix
    • Code of Conduct - Stumptown Syndicate
    • Sample Unconference Budget
    • Volunteer Policy - Stumptown Syndicate
    • Open Source Bridge Photography / Recording Policy
    • Logistics Planning Worksheets
    • Open Source Bridge Logistics Run-Down - Day 1

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