[ANNOUNCE] London Perl Workshop 2011: Newsletter 3

[Mark Keating]

Hello all,

If you are on a general mailing list please don't ignore this just because it says Perl in the title :), this is a free and open event for the technical community so you may wish to consider attending merely to expand your breadth of knowledge...

Welcome all to the third Newsletter for the London Perl Workshop 2011 (the United Kingdom's Perl Workshop - http://shadowc.at/pvDXop), hopefully by now you have registered for this event (http://shadowc.at/oqPG7h), added it to Lanyrd (http://shadowc.at/nhq3kN), liked the Facebook page (http://shadowc.at/pMuOiL) and been avidly watching the news pages (http://shadowc.at/pTjWfX) and following me on twitter (http://shadowc.at/qQqxhX)... What do you mean, no?

The workshop will be held at the University of Westminster's Cavendish Campus on Saturday 12th November 2011.

Oh, well...go and do all those things, but before you rush gleefully away take a look at what's in this newsletter.

1. Training
2. Talk submissions
3. Wireless
4. Food and Drink
5. New to Perl or use another language
6. Looking for developers/graduates, placements and internships
7. Volunteering on the day

1. Training
The schedule for the training sessions is now live at: http://shadowc.at/nRB3Xd I would advise that you add your name to the list of attendees and put it in your personal schedules. Some of the courses are limited for numbers so it is advisable to register your intent to attend in advance, the trainer will be responsible for limiting/accepting people on the day and their decision will be final.

2. Talk submissions
There are just a few days left to submit talks. The deadline is midnight on Friday 21st October, after that date I will be closing the submissions. Please note that this applies to Lightning Talks as well. Dependent on the number submitted there may be a few places available on the day but there is no guarantee of this so please submit now.

3. Wireless
As reported in the news there will be some limited internet connectivity available on the day but only for people who are attending the training sessions, only specific sessions, and only for the term of that session. LPW has always been a wireless free conference and I have no intention of changing that...though in these days of smart phones, pads, dongles and sim-card enabled laptops I can hardly prevent you using your own provider and monthly bandwidth allowance.

4. Food and Drink
Once again, and thanks to the overwhelming generosity of our sponsors, we will be having sponsored coffee and cake in the morning, a buffet and 'n' rounds of beer in the evening and now I can announce that we are having a sponsored lunch buffet as well. Full details of this sponsorship are being thrashed out and will be in a further announcement on the site and elsewhere.

5. New to Perl or use another language
New to Programming, new to Perl, use another language?
If you are new to the Perl language, or are a practitioner of another programming language then we would love to welcome you to the London Perl Workshop this year. The London Perl Workshop is a free event held on Saturday, November 12th, at the University of Westminster, Cavendish Campus, London. And when we say "free' we do mean "free as in Beer". There are: free attendance, free sponsor goodies, free coffee/cakes in the morning, free buffet lunch, free presentations by world-renowned speakers and new speakers, free workshops (see next section) and then free beer (usually 1-3+ rounds dependent on number of attendees) and food at the social event after the conference.

We would also like to welcome those of you taking your first steps into the higher languages and to programming, come along to a conference that embraces newbies, be prepared for spirited debate and to have your understanding stretched, but in a friendly way with a beer and a cake of choice :).

The reason we would especially like to welcome you this year (you are welcome any time) is that there is a glut of companies in the Perlverse seeking new programmers, some of these companies seek experienced Perl personnel, but many of them also seek experienced polyglot programmers as experience of more than one language brings benefits and they have on the job training where you can use your existing skills while learning new ones, there are also companies seeking graduates and have graduate internship programs so this is the right time to brush up your skills in Perl and see what has changed, and trust me a lot has. So take the plunge, at the very least you can see some of the new things in a rival/new language and get a free drink.

Visit: http://shadowc.at/pvDXop and register today ;).


6. Looking for developers/graduates, placements and internships?
If you work for a company, or know of a company that is hiring developers at this time please get them in touch with me as they may be allowed to attend, distribute leaflets and talk to people. There are however some caveats so I must speak with them beforehand (we will not be allowing recruitment agencies unless they sponsor - these must be legitimate companies) to ensure that the best experience can be achieved.

If there are companies looking to hire graduates, or who are willing to take students as interns or on placement for experience then please contact me as soon as possible so that I can compile a list and place you in touch with Sean at the university who will be more than happy to talk to you.

Current sponsors should speak to me immediately.

7. Volunteering on the day
As always I will require a group of people to help me on the day. I already have some people but I need more. So please email me if you can help, I will need people to time talks, check videos and place leaflets and banners up before the conference and help manage the minutiae of organisation. At this time I have:

Registration/Organisation: Steve Sexton, Chris Jackson and Leigh Keating doing shifts on Registration for the day

Videos: Mike Whitaker (helping organise but he will also be speaking) - I have 3 video cameras and would like to have 2 more, preferably digital so I can grab the footage on the day or soon after - I would like to bring as few tripods as possible, who has the ability to provide more and will help Mike and I on the day.

Setting up: Me at this moment, so who will join myself and Sean from 8-ish on the morning of the conference for the mad setup rush.

Lightning Talks: I hate to volunteer him but I will be expecting the magnificent Leon to help with this again :)
I look forward to hearing from you all

-mdk

 -- 
Mark Keating BA (Hons), Writer, Photographer, Cat-Herder.
Managing Director: http://www.shadow.cat
For more that I do visit: http://www.mdk.me