BarCamp Apache Sydney 2010

11 December, University of Sydney, Sydney

The University of Sydney, Alfresco, MaestroDev, IBM, Atlassian, Google and The Apache Software Foundation have come together to run a BarCamp in Sydney in December. The fun will start on the evening of December 10th with a geeky meal followed by pub, the real action commences at 10am on Saturday the 11th (add your name to the list of attendees).

ATTENDEES: follow the tag #barcampsydney to join in), and join the Google Group. That way we can all keep each other informed, about resources, planning, requests for  help/crash space etc.

Details

Venue and overview

(See the bottom of this page for a map showing walking routes to the venue)

The venue is The Darlington Centre. It's booked for the Saturday, but we will kick off on Friday evening with a meal at Sumalee Thai (The Bank Hotel) in Newtown (see below for details). The unconference will happen during Saturday daytime.  For those planning to turn up on Friday night, there are plenty of other cheap options for overnight accommodation in Sydney (including couch surfing for free, see below).

A map showing the centre of Sydney, with walking routes to the venue from the rail and main bus stations, the hotels suggested in the "accommodation" section, and from the Park & Ride bus stops.

Friday Evening

For anyone arriving early, we'll be meeting at Sumalee Thai (The Bank Hotel, 324 King Street - just near the station) in Newtown for a meal from 7.30pm (with the meal reservation at 8:30pm), and will stick around nearby for drinks afterwards. Do come along! Please ensure you've indicated this in the rightmost column of the signup below so that we can get the correct numbers on the booking. The cost is $30pp, and will include a variety of dishes and a vegetarian option.

Meals on Saturday

Food will be provided on Saturday at no cost to the participants, thanks to generous sponsorship from The University of Sydney and the other sponsors. We will be providing morning tea on arrival with fruit and pastries, a full lunch with vegetarian options and afternoon tea. Juice and other drinks throughout the day. We'll have a cash (alcohol) bar in operation much of the day.

Themes

BarCamps are ultimately themed by the attendees: what you want to present, the BarCamp will host.

We'd love for this event to allow academic/hacker types to meet up with the vibrant and highly active geek community in Sydney, New South Wales and beyond. Our intention is to make geek connections between projects in the academic, open source and business sectors.

BarCamps are supposed to be fun, informative and useful. Whilst we do not intend to limit the kinds of topics you can discuss we are deliberately marketing the event to people with interests in one or more of the following:

• Open development techniques and practices
• Web 2.0 style data mashups
• Use of and engagement with The Apache Software Foundations projects

Schedule

It's up to you. Here's the suggested framework. We will fill in the details at the start of play.

• 09:00 set-up/get-in
• 09:30 registration (say hello, make name badge, get swag/loot etc)
• 10:00: After a brief introductory talk, the schedule will be decided by us all at the start of the event. How it works is that we scribble down topics we're interested in and hold them up. If others are interested we then pick a slot on the programme (single or double). It's all very flexible and as topics emerge there is often splitting and lumping and reorganizing. If a session is really going strong at the end of its slot then folks simply decamp and carry on elsewhere, having free'd the room for the next slot. The schedule is expected to morph during the day
• 10:30 First session begins
• 12:30 - 13:30 Lunch
• 13:30 Sessions resume!
• 15:00 Afternoon tea 
• 16:30 Closing session
• 16:45 clean up and off to pub

Here is an example of the schedule from an earlier Apache BarCamp. This years will become available on Flickr tagged #barcampsydney if someone takes photos!

Scheduling will occur on the Saturday morning, driven by those in attendance!

Barcamps need you!

Although we have sponsorship, a venue and a date, unconferences consist of you, the attendee! We need:

• People!
• More sponsorship: food, schwag etc.
• Network bits and pieces, projectors, stationery
• Offers of basic help, setting stuff up
• Offers of crash space for out-of-town visitors, on Friday and maybe Saturday 

Attendance at the BarCamp is Free, but normal BarCamp rules will apply, most importantly all attendees will be expected to participate in an active way. Ways to contribute include:

• present (informally or formally) about your favourite project
• hack together a mashup with other attendees systems
• play devils advocate in a lively debate
• have a drink with someone you have never met before

Help publicise the event

You could help by telling people about the event, or by designing and putting up a poster.

What to bring

• Laptop
• All the chargers/cables you'll need
• A plugboard to make sure we have enough sockets
• If you're using a Mac for a presentation, VGA adapters
• Spare battery (if you have one)
• Camera
• Sleeping materials - sleeping bag, pillow and toiletries (if you are using our crash spaces - see below)
• An idea for a session, presentation or talk
• A smile
• ...?

Crash space

Geeks from out of town will be in need of crash space on Friday 10th. Please put your name down if you can offer someone a piece of floor. Anyone without crash space sorted should let it be known at the meal on Friday, and we can pair people up then.

Attendees

Attendee numbers are limited owing to funding for things like catering. Thanks to the generous support of our sponsors we have managed to increase the maximum attendance from 75, so we're please to report that everyone who has registered below will have a space.

Also mention what you can bring to the party. Everyone at a barcamp will speak or contribute somehow, but if you can offer extra bits and bobs then that'd be great.

Finally, if you don't want to get a pbwiki account, then just email via the google group and we'll put you on it.

Noirin Plunkett (Google / ASF)

Sponsors

Firstly we'd like to say a big Thank You to all our sponsors:

University Of Sydney
Apache Software Foundation
Alfresco
IBM
MaestroDev
Atlassian
Google

Secondly, if you might be able to help out with sponsorship, please contact any of the core organisers (our emails are at the bottom of the page)

Catering

We'll be providing snacks and drinks throughout the day. Lunch will be provided as well, thanks to our kind sponsors! Please let us know (via the google group) if you have any dietary requirements that'll affect either of them.

There is a bar in the venue and we've asked for it to be opened at 3pm. I'm sure there will be a bunch of us heading off for food and more beer in the evening, so  all your needs should be catered for.

On the Friday evening before, we're going to Sumalee Thai (The Bank Hotel) in Newtown for drinks and a meal starting at 7.30pm

Accomodation

Feel free to add some suggestions for accommodation in Sydney. 

If you would like more advice, please contact any of the organisers, as below.

Travel

From the Airport (Kingsford Smith):

You can catch a train from either terminal to Central or Redfern for $15.00.

Travel by rail:

Long distance trains to Sydney all arrive at Sydney Central Terminal. This is about a 15 minute walk away from the venue, and is one stop from Redfern station (the nearest). For details of long distance trains, please see here

The venue is near Redfern Station (it's a 5 minute walk away). For details of how to get there, see CityRail

By car:

There are a number of metered parking spots along Darlington Road, and more parking is available at the University of Sydney at a weekend/evening flat rate of $6.

Getting to the venue:

Taxis are available throughout the city.  By foot, the venue is around 30 minutes from the centre of the city, and around 10 minutes from Redfern rail station.  Please see the map in the next section. 

Buses from the central railway station and the city centre are available, see 131500.info.

Map of Sydney

A map showing the centre of Sydney.

Core Organisers

If you've any queries, contact one of these people.