Hello Sydney PHPers!

First up, I would like to wish each and every one of you a happy new year, I hope 2010 has been treating you well so far!

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all those who participated in the Sydney PHP events last year. This includes those who presented, those who attended, those who sponsored us and finally those who hosted us.

Now that I'm done with the formalities, lets get on with an explanation as to WHAT IS GOING ON!

I feel your frustration, I really do. Four months without a PHP Group will make anyone go a little mad. But really, we've been working on getting things moving, its just taken a little longer than expected. And we apologize to those who have asked questions about whats going on and not gotten an answer or not gotten an answer that they would have probably liked. We simply felt that it was better to announce things publicly to the community all at once rather than drip-feeding information to individuals.

So where are we at? Well lets start with some good news first. We've managed to lock-in enough presenters in advance to switch back to the old meeting style. Meetings will once again be monthly, however they will be held towards the end of each month, usually the third Thursday. As usual, we will be confirming dates before the event and give everyone enough time to secure their calendar for the night.

So far we have 11 presentations booked in from between April and November. There are 3 positions available, so if you feel like being awesome and giving a presentation, let us know! Also if you're interested in being a backup presenter in case of cancellations, also let us know.

We have a new venue! That's  some good news, right? Well... yes and no. Unfortunately nobody has offered to sponsor us, and we were not able to find a free venue. So we've located a paid venue, conveniently situated in the city. The venue's name is "Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts" and it is located at 280 Pitt Street. So it's directly across from one of the Town Hall station exits.

Now in the interests of being open and honest with the community, here are the pricing details. We will be booking each event for 3 hours. This will cost us $99. We anticipate having a least 20 people per event, so we've decide to set the admission fee at $5 per person. This however, only covers the cost of the venue, NOT food and drink. If more than 20 people attend, the extra $ will go towards food and drink. If less than 20 people attend, there will not be food and drink and the organizers (currently only James and myself) will cover the difference.

Some months are sponsored (yes, already confirmed, done deal, will announce when the time is right). This means food and drink will be provided, so it matters not how many people attend. However, unless stated otherwise, the $5 entry fee still applies because the venue costs are not sponsored.

Having said all that, we're still hoping someone will read this, take pity on our group and offer us a venue. Free :).

Right so, now I've got that out in the open. Let's talk events!

Our new event schedule looks like this:

6:00    - People Arrive
6:30    - Welcome
6:35    - Introductions
6:45    - Group Announcements
6:50    - Open Floor Discussion
7:00    - Presentation 1
7:30    - Presentation 1 Q&A
7:40    - Intermission - Food & Drink
8:00    - Presentation 2
8:30    - Presentation 2 Q&A
8:40    - Wrap-Up & Tidy-Up
9:00    - Be Out The Door

The Open Floor Discussion part is new this year. While James and I are the organisers (Rich, Geoff, we miss you! Come back anytime!), this is a community and we would like to keep it as open as possible. We feel that everybody should get a chance to be heard if they have opinions or ideas that could help improve the group. But the Open Discussions don't need to be limited to discussions about the group. If somebody wants to ask some questions which relate to PHP or the web in general, get feedback on something they've been working on, this is the time-slot to do it in.

Each night will be broken up into two presentations. Each presentation will run for 30 minutes with a 10 minute question and answer time at the end. Intermission will provide an opportunity for those that attend to network with each other and hopefully eat.

Because we're booking a 3 hour time slot, we MUST be cleaned up and out the door by 9 sharp. We appreciate all who can stay back and help us to make sure that happens :).

Finally, presentations.

Coming in April we have Steven Roddis, who gave several PHP security based presentations back in 2008, is giving a presentation titled "Two Factor Authentication Using PHP". We also have Graham Weldon, who gave the CakePHP presentation last year in October, is coming back to give a presentation on PHP Unit Testing. More details on each of these presentations will be provided next week.

The date of the event is April, Thursday 22nd at the address stated above.

Looking ahead a little, we have Daniel Winter with a Symfony presentation, Kevin Waterson talking about PHP Command Line programming, Nick Hodge from Microsoft presenting Zune, Dean Rather (who is yet to confirm what he is presenting!), Me doing a Google mash-up using Maps, Apps and Search, and a few other presenters/presentations in the second half of the year which we'll announce closer to their dates.

If anyone has any questions or concerns, feel free to comment in this thread on the PHP Website (please don't use the mailing list). And again, more details about April's event will be announced next week including the RSVP address.

Cheers,
- Sydney PHP Group Organisers

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 2:31 pm and is filed under PHP, announcements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.