You pretty much sold me with #4.  Nothing says tons o' fun like beer
and dangerous water sports.

-Mike


On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 9:40 AM, Edward M. Corrado <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Code4lib,
>
> Over on his One Big Library blog, Dan Chudnov had a list of conferences he
> liked to attend
> (http://onebiglibrary.net/story/conferences-id-like-to-attend). One of them,
> was the idea of a PowerlessCamp. Dan defined a PowerlessCamp as having "no
> power. no lights, no laptops, no projectors. no wifi, no video or audio
> recording or amplification. Held outside maybe, in daylight. Maybe with some
> picnic benches. "
>
> I think it is a brilliant idea and that way too many people, including me,
> rely on electricity and technology to get things done at conferences and
> while I understand why, I think the idea of a PowerlessCamp is great.
>
> I think that doing something like this one weekend during the summer would
> be great. I can see it done at a campground that offers group sites. People
> could come and camp (or just for the day). Other activities such as canoing
> or hiking could be easily arranged. Since a camp ground is cheaper then a
> hotel, it wouldn't be relatively cheap to attend (once you got there,
> anyway).
>
> I'm not sure where you would hold it. I'm thinking it would be tough to do
> it at a campground that is close to a major airport so people would probably
> need to drive/carpool. Because of this, turnout would probably be best if it
> was within a 5 or 6 hour drive of major population areas. If Code4Lib was
> going to get involved with something like this, that would most likely mean
> somewhere in the northeast since we have major populations of Code4Libers in
> DC, Philly, New York, Eastern Canada and other locations throughout the
> northeast US - maybe in Pennsylvania or New York? Anyway, I'm wondering how
> much interest there is in this. With this in mind, I created a Web site
> (actually a blog) at http://powerlesscamp.org/ for people to comment on if
> they wish. If I get enough interest, I'll expand the site to include a wiki
> and more.
>
> So, here is my very loose proposal off the top of my head (copied from my
> blog): .
>
> 1. We have the first PowerlessCamp over a weekend during Summer 2009
> 2. It be roughly organized around the same topics as Code4Lib (software,
> mostly open source, for libraries)
> 3. It be located at a campground somewhere in the northeast.
> 4. The location should be somewhere that offers a variety of outdoor
> activities so we can do stuff besides the conference. Activities could
> include tubing, canoing, rafting, hiking, mountain biking, drinking beer.
> 5. Cell phones are allowed for emergency use only
> 6. Anyone who takes out a laptop will have it thrown in the camp fire :-)
> 7. I am a little unsure about how to do formal proposals, but I think we
> should have some form of proposal system though. My guess is the conference
> will be small enough that everyone that wants will get a chance to talk. We
> just have to figure out the schedule in advance so we know how much time to
> allot to everyone
>
> Schedule wise, I'm thinking the conference "sessions" part would be on a
> Saturday, maybe starting around 11 AM or noon and going until about 6:00 or
> 7:00 PM when we start up the grills and campfire and open up a beer or two.
> We can make arrangements for group outdoor activities on Friday and Sunday.
> With maybe the first of us to arrive on Thursday evening and the last of us
> leaving Monday morning. Obviously, even though the conference in this
> scenario would only be on Saturday, a bunch of library geeks hanging out
> together won't be able to last long without talking about geeky stuff, so
> the whole event would be educational.
>
> What do you all think? If you are interested in the concept, either e-mail
> or post something to the blog. I'm not sold on any wedded ideas above,
> besides that doing this at some point would be great so please share your
> ideas on how you think it would be good to organize such an event. I'm not
> expecting 200 people to show up, but if we could get 10-20 people to come
> out and support it, I'd be thrilled.
>
> Edward
>