Clojurians Log v2

morning.... just saw this...

😞 😞 😞

I just started organising things for this, who to meet etc.

I also intended to join this year, I’m sad to see it go

I had already booked train and hotel.

Just saw this as well, alreay booked everything 😐

This is so sad

it was a very good conference and a beacon for Europe Clojurists

we should check the law, maybe we have some ownership on these because we were the subjects

I can’t believe one could wipe it out just like this

Unfortunately, with receivership, there's not much you can do

You're an unsecured creditor

which means you come way way way way wwwwaay down the list of who gets any compensation, or even money back

It's possible, perhaps via travel insurance, to claim your money back for hotel/flights etc, check policy?

Yup, there was no refund clause on my hotel and flights, wasn’t a fortune. Just part of the gig.

Where are you flying from?

Belfast

It’s such a shame. I booked flights from Lithuania, but coincided it with a necessary trip so it’s not so bad

I haven't looked, but I suspect I can't get a refund for my train ticket as I booked the cheapest ticket.

We could always organise an informal Clojure meet at a pub / restaurant or something for those of you that are coming to London anyway. Have a bit of a gathering of some kind.

@slipset @jr0cket @olical Yeah, I was thinking we could just reserve an entire large-ish pub for two days from 0800-1730. If those attending commit to purchasing lunch + dinner and a drink or two we could probably get to use the venue for free (i.e. they waive the minimum spend) Do we know how many attendees were scheduled to attend? We could reach out the the scheduled speakers and see if they would be willing to come despite not being refunded flights/hotels?

I wasn't being refunded anyhoop 🙂

@cfeckardt only downside would be that I'd have to finish my talk and that it wouldn't get recorded. The latter may or may not be a downside.

hah

^^ Would the above be something you’d be interested in, in lieu of ClojureX being cancelled? @jasonbell @dana.borinski @olical @danieleneal @ztellman @peterwestmacott @firthh @salaun.clement @kennethkalmer

I would imagine that the first thing we'd need is an official notice that ClojureX has been cancelled.

Yeah of course, but it’d be good to know if people were still interested if (🙏 not) it does get officially cancelled, because Christmas is around the corner we’ll probably have to move quickly if we’re going to find a venue. So best to reach out asap, to not waste any time.

Agreed

Yeah. That might be nice! We were talking about possibly hosting at riverford, but it's a bit out the way down in Devon. That said "clojure on a farm" would be a nice conference to arrange some day ;) could have talks in the day, then walk in the country, and social in the yurt by the fireside

@cfeckardt Interested! Already booked everything anyway and my talk is almost-ish ready, would be great to see the community making it happen 🙂

I'd love to come

im interested as well and also have everything booked already 😎

hadn't booked anything, 'cos i'm near london, but i have/had a clojurex ticket, and would be interested in an alternative

@cfeckardt That’s very kind but I’ve cancelled my work holiday and made other plans, I’ve got book edits to do anyway. Thank you for thinking of me though.

Full list of speakers before it goes under

I think it would be great if the conference still went ahead with the venue change. I know in the past ClojureX, The Crypt in St James church in Clarkenwell was used as the venue… It really would be good to know how many people would still attend and how many people would still present and then maybe it can be taken from there? Does anybody know if the tickets for the speakers were already purchased? What about their accommodation? Because if that was handled, then potentially it could still happen. What do you think?

https://github.com/slipset/clojurex2019/blob/master/programme.md

I think that both of those idea are great. Pub or farm, as long as there will other enthusiastic attendees

It seems like a lot of spaces offer Daily Delegate Rates, where you pay per-attendee. Prices seem to range from £40-£90 per person per day in central. Ordinarily you'd need to book well in advance but it might be worth looking into for rooms in large hotels, etc, which have the infrastructure to do it on short notice.

The other challenge would be to communicate with attendees, as only SkillsMatter has this list today

Yea, but I guess if you’re “loud enough”, by posting on Reddit/Slack/other social media channels, then people will pick this up, or at least a large part of them.

Here is the sample form, please suggest in thread what other questions/considerations should we have: https://forms.gle/fAKVw2E2SLEd8SH47

Don’t share this yet. Let’s add some more questions/points to it, before we do. This is just for this discussion. Thanks

If you would, would you be happy to pitch in to cover the costs of the new venue? would be better as Would you be willing to contribute something to cover the costs of the new venue?

or words similar

you have would, would twice...

🙂

Fixing…

Also

If you would or are still on the cusp but would like to be informed about what's taking place, could you provide your email below ? Thanks better as Would you like to be kept informed of what is happening? If so, please provide your email below.

Not to sure about the title "the undead" has a bit of a negativity about it

Perhaps something like The Revival, but <shrug> happy to go with consensus here 🙂

Cool, adding it now…

Yeah my thoughts exactly :thumbsup:

I'd ask people specifically how much they'd be willing to spend on a replacement

Added. And added a question about if people would like to contribute towards filming costs

OK, I’ll add that too @jack.crawley92

Perhaps something like Would you be willing to contribute a small financial amount, say £10-20 (€30-40), to cover the costs of the new venue?

Not sure what the range would be there

Hmm, not sure if we should commit to something like that. I’d much rather see if people would be interested in attending and then the price range can be asked from them via email if they provide it…

This still doesn't read right, If you would or are still on the cusp but would like to be informed about what's taking place, could you provide your email below ? Thanks. I suggest If you are still unsure, but would like to be informed....

But by no means am I some sort of authority on this…

I think the most important info to collect is how much people will pay for a replacement - that's your bottleneck.

If you are unsure, but would like to be still kept informed, please provide your email below

So the form does have one respondent already 🙂 100% positive !

Artisan bespoke conferences

Pop-Up-Conferences

could be a new thing, instead of pop-up cafe's etc..

https://xkcd.com/2215/

^ all us speakers talking to one guy

I’ve seen conferences take place at cost, where the organisers published all the costs upfront and people paid just for that. 100+ attendees, no food, no gimmicky merch

I guess you’d need to figure out which speakers would still be coming.

Yea, but let’s create this form first and then share it, hopefully people will respond.

Maybe put a question there about whether you would consider hosting

Good idea

@dharrigan amended the question as per your suggestion!

If you can peg a location with a DDR offer, that's all-inclusive for the basics (basic A/V, sandwich lunch, refreshments). As a benchmark, the Canary Wharf Hilton appears to offer a ~100 person room for £450 minimum spend and £50 per person. It's going to be higher closer to moorgate. Barbican, which is basically next door to the original location, seems to be £69 per person with a 30 person minimum.

another amendment...

Maybe specify somewhere that this is a community driven attempt to make the conference happen

since it follows on from the previous question thus making it unclear, this would read better

@salaun.clement good point!

Overall, if you are unsure about attending, but would like to be still kept informed, please provide your email below

Otherwise, the question feels like a follow on from the previous question, making it ambiguous.

@dharrigan done!

What else ?

yes, much better! 🙂

I’d maybe also mention that this is 100% non profit!

Perhaps change this venue & sold the tickets, going bankrupt. since it's gone into administration

and no word about bankrupcy, which are two different things

i.e., there could still be money in the pot, just not enough money in the pot for a viable future

so, something like this

Ignoring other costs, that means you can offer a concrete value for a replacement ticket with less risk.

which provided the venue and sold the tickets has gone into administration

No bones about it, organising a conference at short notice is very tricky

also

This form is there -> This form is here

Done.

Done.

with the fellow Clojurians -> with fellow Clojurians

What about the question about the email, I’d like to rephrase it so that people who do want to come provide their email as well as those who are unsure…

Something like: "If you'd like to attend or just want to be kept informed about the progress of this initiative, please provide your email below" ?

Finally, in order to be kept informed, even if you are unsure about attending, please provide your email address below

OK, adding that @dharrigan

thinking...

yeah, looks okay

actually

due to the company which provided the venue & sold the tickets has gone into administration. -> due to the company which provided the venue and sold the tickets going into administration

@dharrigan done.

"Would you be willing to contribute" doesn't tell you much - you need to know people's budgets

They might be willing to contribute £10-£20, but that's not going to get you a proper venue

But at this point we don’t even know if they’d still like to attend.

And we don’t know who they are.

As in we don’t have their emails.

@jack.crawley92 agreed. I have no idea what range. Perhaps

So maybe we can get their emails and see what the general interest is. Then we can show what the options are: - venue X, £10 per head - venue Y, £100000 per head

Then people can speak up.

Perhaps a question like "What would be the most you would be willing to contribute?"

maybe make it multiple choice - would you be willing to contribute nothing £10/ £20/ £100 /more, something about plucking a price out the air feels tricky

I mean, there was a conference held in a pub: https://twitter.com/lambd_ale

OK, I’ll amend the question adding the price range.

Yeah, or mulitiple choice,

10, 20, 50, 100, 500+

something like that

that pub conference looks great

never knew about it

Make sure something around £50-£60 is an option, that looks standard per-head for dedicated conference rooms

Looks like a nice venue from the photos

OK, added the options @dharrigan listed

What else ?

Looks okay

PErhaps

"If you can't make it this year, would you be interested if there was something organised for next year?"

<shrug>

maybe?

or maybe not 🙂

Sure, I’ll add that

Added.

Any other ideas ?

next year -> next year?

I'll have a think. I have to pop out now to collect kid

I want to hold off from sharing it… but because this is on a short notice… I’ll post it on #events and see the responses

Then later I might add to reddit and similar

don't forget #clojure-uk 🙂

but good job on stepping up to do the questionnaire

it's something at least! 🙂

well done!

Yep well done @dotemacs :thumbsup:

Thanks 🙂

well done!

Called Skills Matter, no response, called Resolve (the administrator), the person handling the case is in a meeting right now but the receptionist said they'd get back to me.

I’ve just been in contact with @ztellman and informed him of the situation. It was news to him.

If Anyone(TM) has Chris McCormicks contact details, it would be great to inform him as well.

An official statement announcing that ClojureX is cancelled (if that is in fact the case) would be great too, I guess.

@jr0cket ^^?

Yeah at least updating the website and removing ticket sales button would prevent further damage as the conference date is getting closer

I don’t think I’ll be able to make the alternate conf, but I hope everyone local will be able to salvage something

https://clojure.org/events/2019/clojurex

Via @ztellman

Sent a PM to Chris on Twitter as well.

Apparently they "aren't yet liquidating, they're actively looking for a buyer," which might be why they haven't overtly cancelled https://twitter.com/robsmallshire/status/1191760311403061248

Like everyone else - very sad to see SkillsMatter go ;/

Really enjoyed the 2 conferences I got to attend a few years back... Grails and Microservices ...

But I've been an avid follower of the videos of DDD and ClojureX amongst others

And yes ... selfishly my first thought was about what will happen to the videos ... they are a brilliant resource

I can only hope that London devs will coalesce around other events that over time might do as good a job as SkillsMatter did.

Or indeed that SkillsMatter lives on with a new buyer 🙂

I have spoken to an event coordinator from http://talent.io today. I explained the situation and he seemed confident and willing to help sort out a venue for a clojure conference at 'no cost'. He's available for a call tomorrow. Would anyone be willing to join in on that call, to help clarify requirements and expectations?

Hi X,

It was nice to meet you today. What did you think of the presentation?

I have looked at the <http://talent.io|talent.io> website and am intrigued about your service. It sounds like a good way to get in touch with potential customers, and is definitely something I would consider in the future.

We spoke briefly today about the Clojure London conference ClojureX being cancelled as the company that manages it has gone into administration yesterday. <https://clojure.org/events/2019/clojurex>

A large number of developers and the speakers have already booked travel and accommodation to London (from all over the world) and are disappointed that it won't go ahead.

However, the community is rallying around trying to salvage something and get at least scaled down version of the conference happening somewhere in the UK. Last
t year 300 people attended and we are trying to estimate numbers for this year, as well as confirm how many speakers would be able to make it without getting remunerated (realistically I think we'll only be able to fill one day instead of the planned two)

For a bare bones event to take place all that is needed is a venue and a projector.

You had mentioned that <http://talent.io|talent.io> organises these sort of meetups regularly and that you might be able to help us on short notice.

Do you think this is something you'd be able to assist with? Are you still available for a call tomorrow?

Kind regards
Fredrik

This is great news

I wouldn't count my chickens just yet but with a bit of luck it might lead to something

Putting together a list of potential speaker, will try to get in touch with them all => https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1flEvhRNLH6qbAGfdxdUNnaylnX-GK1fdNNMz9OndlBY/edit?usp=sharing

@jasonbell ~ how many attendees last year?

@dotemacs can you add Name to this list as well? If this ends up being the attendee list we may be required to provide e-mail + name?

Can join the call, as a originally planned speaker, if you think that can be of any help 😉

paging @olical @danieleneal @ztellman @peterwestmacott @firthh @kennethkalmer @dana.borinski

@cfeckardt CodeNode's largest room has a capacity of 300 in theatre format, so I'm guessing that's the max

Adding it now

@cfeckardt added it!

@cfeckardt At a guess, I think it was ~150-170 but that’s a guess and I’m not really the best person to ask.

thanks

Great e-mail sent

I can join. What time is the call?

So, to summarise: @dotemacs is handling getting together an attendee list, and generally gauging the interest for a resurrection. @salaun.clement is reaching out to speakers to see if they will be willing to still attend @cfeckardt (me) is trying to sort out a venue. If we can get a venue we also need to sort out food and drink (and figure out how to finance it, one way would just be to have a collection jar with reasonable prices. Then donate any proceeds to CIDER/clj-kondo/other project 😃)

But why bother with organising the food & drinks? It’ll never please everybody and we can just assume that the attendees are grown up enough to get their own food. I mean, they probably do that any other day of their lives. Maybe we can just concentrate on the essentials first: - get the speakers - get the venue - get enough people to turn up - then worry about getting it filmed

I did email the people behind Lambda Ale, a functional conference in a pub, about their venue and capacity…

Maybe we can take a leaf out of this “book” (in particular the section Long breaks): https://lambdaisland.com/blog/2019-08-09-fork-this-conference

By having those longer breaks, it’ll give people time to chat and go get their food

my wife complains that I always focus on food first as my number one priority in life. I guess she’s right. 🙂