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2010/02/11: Planning a conference for June 25

Submitted by hallman on Fri, 02/12/2010 - 1:36pm

Purpose: from the Meetup site.

The NCTech4Good organizers and PINInc/RTPnet would like to have a local nonprofit technology conference similar to those RTPnet had in 2000-2005. We've reserved space for the conference at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill for Friday, June 25, 2010.

We've rescheduled the first planning meeting for Feb. 11, 11:30-1:30, at United Way of the Greater Triangle, to do initial planning and set up committees. If you would like to help out, please join us, RSVP, and bring your own lunch. Whether you come to the meeting or not, please join the discussion group for planning the conference at http://nccommunities.org/conference-team. I hope we can do a lot of the work using online tools and won't need many face-to-face meetings.

I've started a wiki-like section for conference resources at http://nccommunities.org/conference . Note in particular the proposed timeline at http://nccommunities.org/conference-timeline.

Location: United Way of the Greater Triangle, 2400 Perimeter Park Drive, Suite 150, Morrisville

Website: http://www.meetup.com/NCTech4Good/calendar/12506506/

Attendees: Shelly Bowers - SBowers at unitedwaytriangle.org, Rebecca Curry - currierc at earthlink.net, Leandra Ganko - leandra at legadesigngroup.com, Marjorie Fowler - marjorie at email.unc.edu, Judy Hallman - hallman at email.unc.edu, Paula Jones - pjones at ncnonprofits.org, Tani Kennedy - tanikennedy at aol.com, Justis Peters - justis at indythinker.com, Dov Pinker, Saroj Primlani - sarojprimlani at gmail.com, Nancy Shoemaker - nancy at shoemakergroup.com, Sean Watson - support at seanwatson.com

NOTES

Most of the discussion was about determining the technology needs of local nonprofits so that our growing team of volunteers can help. We agreed this would be the focus of the conference.

We talked about a two-day conference with Friday as a conventional conference aimed at nonprofit staff and Saturday an unconference aimed at volunteers, but felt this was too ambitious. Instead we'll continue the conference into early evening, inviting those who can't come during the day to join us for Happy Hours.

The general plan is a fairly structured morning to get nonprofts thinking about new ways technology can help them, round table discussions in the afternoon, and informal socializing (perhaps a career fair) into the early evening.

Action items may come out of the conference. We might want to follow up later with a Saturday problem solving session or perhaps follow up in our monthly meetings.

Action items:

  • Sean is overall conference coordinator, with Tani and Judy assisting.
  • Two surveys -- one for nonprofits and one for volunteers. Team: Paula, Nancy, Tani, Sean, Judy, Rebecca (leader).
    What are needs nonprofits share? What do volunteers want to do? Paula will send to Rebecca data from the NC Center for Nonprofits' help line, which Rebecca will use to propose survey items. Tani will help design the surveys. Nancy has a SurveyMonkey account we can use. We need the results of the surveys ASAP.
  • Program: topics, speakers, session length. Team: Paula, Saroj, Tani, Judy, Sean (leader).
    A keynote speaker or panel on state of the art of technology for nonprofits. Five-minute ignite sessions -- "Did you know you could...?" Pitch ideas to work on. Tips and tricks. Rehash NCTech4Good presentations. Get ideas/help from Triangle Gives Back and Durham Cares. Breakout groups based on survey. Create your own session sign-up sheets that just give title.
  • Website Rebecca, Judy, Sean, Tani, Leandra (leader)
    Judy would like to use CiviEvent for online registration.
  • Logistics: timeline, room setup, nametags, registration table, sponsors tables, publicity, info on local hotels and restaurants for people who might stay over. Leandra, Shelly, Tani, Judy, Sean, Nancy (leader)
  • Finances: Sponsors (we have space for a max of 8 tables), find giveaways, establish fees, scholarships. Tani, Sean, Judy (leader)

Join us: Communication will be through http://nccommunities.org/conference-team. If you are registered on NCCommunities, click "Join" in the left sidebar. If you are not registered, click "Create new account" and fill out the form, checking "Join Conference planning team." Members of the group will be notified by email of new Group Posts.

If you would like to join a team, please email the team leader and copy Judy Hallman - hallman at email.unc.edu and Sean Watson - support at seanwatson.com

Future meetings: Teams will meet as needed. The entire planning group will reconvene when needed.