How to Get the Most Out of BarCamp Portland 4

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BarCamp is about you — learn, share, hack, and celebrate around the tech and web you live.

There are no limits to BarCamp — prepare for a dizzying choice of sessions and dream big.

BarCamp unconferences run on user-generated content — pack all the good stuff like cameras, recording equipment, smart phones, laptops, moleskines, pens, business cards, charging cords, and anything else that you want to. Yes, do interview each other, blog, record sessions and conversations, photograph, and post.

Meet new friends, introduce yourself — leave room in your pack for the cards, stickers, and the accumulation of flotsam and jetsam that comes with exchanging ideas. You may want to prepare links, slides, and other references and citations to create a session topic or to lead a presentation. If you’re kind of shy by nature, two kindly registrars savvy to  the local geek scene will be at the front table and eager to make introductions.

~*Please RSVP*~ Do that here: http://barcampportland4.eventbrite.com/ To be sure there is enough to go around for both days, we need to know how many folks will be coming by. The sooner you can let us know you’ll be there better, since we are volunteer staffed and sponsor funded. (There is no obligation to attend if you register, and no one be turned away if they don’t.)

Accommodate the Love | Share it All:

Wiki : http://wiki.barcampportland.org

Photos | Tags

The Eliot Center location — BarCamp Portland will be held at the First Unitarian Church’s Eliot Center. Address: 1226 SW Salmon St, Portland, OR 97205 (Get Directions).

The date | time | activities — Friday, October 22 from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. is the the social banter session.

On Saturday, October 23, the day starts early, with doors open at 9 a.m. People talk about sessions and enjoy some coffee and bagels. At 10:00 a.m. we’ll kick off the unconference with a short introduction. Then folks will announce their session ideas and post them on the schedule board. Sessions usually last an hour, but can be extended at a moments notice. If you decide to extend the session, there are usually open rooms or public spaces you can commandeer for that.

BarCamp at the Eliot Center will end at 9:00 p.m., but feel free to continue posting and conversing until next year, when you bring your new friends and ideas to BarCamp Portland 5!

BarCamp needs YOU!… to serve your buds beer! (OLCC server needed)

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Friends, does serving an icy-cold, frosty, hand-crafted, micro-brewed, made right here in Oregon beer to your thirsty bro’s & sis’s make you feel good about yourself? Does not the mere thought of such an activity give you the warm fuzzies all over? And doesn’t that make you a much better person, with a far more enriched life?

If the answer to some or all of the above is a resounding, “Yes!,” then BarCamp needs YOU!… to serve beer. For we plan on having some very tasty micro-brew for all our participants and need your help in making this happen.

Here’s what we need: our gracious venue, the Eliot Center, requires that we either —

  • Have a person(s) with a current, valid OLCC server card to serve the beer.
  • Arrange with the Eliot Center to do a brief training with them to be an OLCC Temporary Server just for the BarCamp event on October 22nd & 23rd.

If you already have your OLCC Server card or wish to be trained to be the OLCC Temporary Server, please contact christiekoehler at gmail dot com, or post a message to the BarCamp Portland Planning Google Group.

Pröst!

Why You Should RSVP for BarCamp Portland 4

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We haven’t had RSVPs at the first three BarCamps Portland, but we’re trying it out this year. I want to emphasize two things:

If you forget to RSVP, you can still come to BarCamp. The RSVP is completely optional.

You do not need to bring your “ticket” to BarCamp. Don’t print one out; we don’t want to create waste.

So, why have these RSVPs at all? Simply, we want to get an idea of how many people will attend and roughly what the vegetarian/omnivore breakdown is. Also, seeing people express interest in attending makes the organizing team happy. It’s a good thing.

Please come to Barcamp Portland 4, Oct 22nd and 23rd. Don’t forget to RSVP.

Announcing This Year’s Location

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We’re happy to announce where BarCamp Portland 4 will be held this year. We have reserved space at the Eliot Center, at SW 12th and Salmon Street.

Earlier this year, several of us toured the building (on multiple occasions), and we were impressed by the staff and policies at the Eliot Center as well as by the building itself.

Friday night, we will have a large reception hall and atruim area. Saturday, we will have those plus several classroom-sized breakout rooms. One of the many nice things about this facility is that we can rent just as much of it as we need.

The buildings at the Eliot Center are accessible and well maintained, and the location is easy to get to by a variety of popular transportation methods.

You can find out more about the Eliot Center, including directions about how to get there, at: http://eliotcenterportland.org/

Planning to attend BarCamp Portland? Don’t forget to RSVP here!

Childcare at BarCamp Portland 4: We need your feedback!

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Kate participates in play time for the Big Steps Childcare Campaign

Previous BarCamp participants have often requested childcare. For the first time, we’re seriously looking at what it would take to provide this during the event.

Were we to provide childcare, our hope would be to make it the best possible experience for parents and their kids who wish to attend BarCamp Portland 4, and we need your input.

So far, we’ve researched two options for childcare:

  1. On-site. Our prospective downtown venue has a room that we can use for child care. We would either need to hire a service (see below) or staff it (in shifts) ourselves.
  2. Off-site, using a licensed childcare provider. We already have a quote from WeVillage, located in the Pearl District (very close to our venue).

Hiring a service is completely dependent on having the sponsor funds to do so.

What we need to know from you is the following:

  1. That childcare is important to you.
  2. What kind of experience is desired from people staffing the child care?
    • Parents themselves only?
    • Child care professionals?
    • Is first-aid/cpr certification a requirement?
    • What would BarCamp need to supply, if anything? Kid-friendly food, toys, baby wipes, etc?
  3. Would you be willing to volunteer for a childcare shift?
  4. Do you know anyone who would like to sponsor childcare?

Please feel free to take on this discussion with your own input & ideas, in the comment section below, or by emailing christiekoehler at gmail dot com.

Update: We need to hear from you by Monday, Oct 4th in order to make the necessary child care arrangements, so be prompt with your feedback.

Update 10/4: As of today, no one has RSVP’d and indicated they would like childcare at Barcamp Portland 4. Given our limited planning and sponsorship resources, we’re going to discontinue our efforts to provide childcare for at year’s event. We’ll try again next year.

Also, if you’re planning on attending BarCamp Portland, don’t forget to RSVP and on the RSVP be sure let us know that you’d like childcare.

BarCamp Portland 4 Needs Sponsors!

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We’re deep in the planning stages of BarCamp Portland 4, scheduled for Oct 22nd and 23d and are actively seeking sponsors!

Are you interested in contributing to this year’s event? As in past years, BarCamp is free to all attendees, so your contributions are essential in allowing us provide venue space, wifi and food. We can’t put on BarCamp without your help.

As always, we’re very flexible about sponsorships. We don’t have formal sponsor levels; all Legion of Tech events have a  ”contribute what you can” sponsorship model. Suggested amounts are as follows: individuals / bloggers contribute $250, small startups around $500, and other companies are usually in the $1000+ range. In exchange for your sponsorship, we provide visibility for sponsor logos on our websites, prominent logo placement on signage at the event, and more. Sponsoring BarCamp is a great way to support Portland’s tech community.

Any help you can offer to help us make this event a success would be appreciated. Please see our Sponsor BarCamp Portland page and also contact sponsor@legionoftech.org if you’d like to contribute.

New Website

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We’ve launched a new website! Ok, chances are you’re on this site and you already know that.

It has the basics, but we can definitely use help adding content, including:

1. Simple definition of BarCamp.
2. Participant experiences: write a blog post about your previous experience attending a BarCamp.
3. Photos of previous BarCamps.
4. Previous schedules.

A BarCamp site we like a lot is BarCamp Tampa Bay’s: http://barcamptampabay.org/

If you want to help, contact Christie (christiekoehler at gmail dot com) and let me know which of the following you want to help with:

1. WordPress theming.
2. WordPress plugin configuration (e.g. adding flickr pool of BarCamp photos)
3. Writing / Editing.

Help Us Plan for BarCamp4

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We’ve set a date for BarCamp Portland 4: October 23.  We’ll be announcing the location soon.

I know that sounds like a long way off, because it sounds like Fall, and depending on what time of day you’re reading this, it might actually seem like Summer right now. Actually, it’s time to plan BarCamp!

We’ll be holding a planning meeting on Monday, August 2, at 6:30 PM, at the Lucky Lab Overlook Tap Room in North Portland. Anyone who is interested is welcome.

If you’re interested in volunteering, either by joining the planning team or as an on-site volunteer during BarCamp, please sign up and tell us what you might like to do  so that we can get in touch:

And if you can, please join us Monday!