We really need the community to come together to make Barcamp 3.5 happen. I was pretty much convinced that we should cancel Barcamp this month, but at the organizer's meeting the community spoke and said they wanted to have a Barcamp.
So we went forward and planned a scaled-down one-day "Barcamp 3.5" event for May 22nd. Now it's 2 weeks 2 days to Barcamp day and we have a lot of work to do, but the community has not gotten involved as it has in the past. If Barcamp is going to happen, we need people to take action. One or two people cannot do it all. We need people to step up and participate in a proactive manner. We need people to take action! We have announced the event and we need to make it happen. If it is a failure then Barcamp may go the way of the dinosaur. Perhaps the time for Barcamp in Bangkok has come and gone. Perhaps it has served it purpose and after this we should retire it and pat ourselves on the back for the big change it made in it's time. But if we don't want to see Barcamp become a thing of the past, we all need to pitch in and make sure that we make it at least "good enough" for an interim event so it's reputation and THE geek event stays strong. To make Barcamp happen on May 22nd, we need two things: sponsors and people to help get things done. Sponsors are not coming to us with money like they have in the past. A lot of it has to do with the political situation; it's not a good time to spend on sponsorships for them. Many sponsors from the past that I have contacted are not sponsoring this time. I have contacted a number of companies but success has been very limited. We need new sponsors. Small sponsors are OK; we should let the small companies show their support for the community. We need at least B10,000 more for the minimum budget and we could use up to B85,000 more if we want to do some cool things. Please leverage your contacts to find companies that can sponsor. We need people to sponsor NOW and get money to us soon. If you have a person or company that wants to sponsor, please have them contact me. We also need people to take action and do things. Several people have volunteered to organize parts of Barcamp. If you volunteered and have taken action, please let me know what done and what you are working on. I have not heard back from many people that volunteered. If you find you don't have the time, let me know sooner rather than later-- it's OK if you don't have the time, we can find somebody else that does and it's better if you let us know now. If there are people that can spare the time and are passionate about keeping Barcamp alive in Bangkok, contact me, I will be glad to have your assistance! I think we all want to see Barcamp succeed and continue to prosper. If we can make Barcamp 3.5 work, then we can look forward to Barcamp 4 which could be the biggest, best and most innovative one yet in SE Asia! Your help is greatly appreciated. -- John -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Barcamp Thailand" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/barcamp-thailand?hl=en.
