[wplug-board] Ideas for workshop/hackathon type events

[Pat Barron]

Apropos of our discussion earlier this evening, I'm thinking about how 
we'd go about doing some more "hands-on" events like workshops or 
hackathons.  I have a couple of specific ideas, such as:

* Help hack on the (new, CMS-based) web site until it works.
* Hands-on intro to Android development - bring a laptop with a wireless 
LAN card, and a USB flash drive, we provide a bootable "run from flash 
drive" system image (built using the strategies we discussed on 
Saturday) with the whole development toolchain pre-installed, you write 
that image to your flash drive and boot from it, and we all learn how to 
do "Hello, World!" on Android together, plus you get to take the flash 
drive with you when you leave (since it was already yours to begin with...)
* Work on some type of open-source project together, perhaps for a full 
weekend.  My immediate idea would be the sort of "open-source 
organization membership management system" I had talked about before (I 
probably only had this discussion with Justin in person, I think...), 
but the actual project can be pretty much anything - this would be as 
much a social event as anything else.  But the idea would be, the leader 
of the "event" would set up whatever infrastructure would be required 
ahead of time (github repository, Heroku instance, etc.), and would have 
an architecture in mind (or maybe this could be discussed ahead of time 
before the event) - and before the event is over, the project has formed 
itself into something close to a "minimum viable product".  Almost like 
a StartupBus kind of thing (http://www.startupbus.com), except not on a 
bus, and intended to bootstrap an open-source project rather than a 
business.

There are any number of options for things like this - these are just 
ones off the top of my head.

What I wonder is, even if we come up with a great idea, we'd need a 
venue where it would be possible to do it.  Somewhere that:

* Could accommodate a small group of people (say, 6 to 10 participants) 
for a full day, maybe even a full weekend
* Would be a reasonably comfortable working space
* Would have some sort of Internet access (preferably wireless) available
* Wouldn't charge us an arm and a leg to use the space...

I am just at a loss right now as far as how we could find venues to 
accommodate things like this.  My immediate idea would be to try to get 
a small conference room at a hotel on a weekend where they don't have an 
event going on, and see if they'd be willing to let us use it for 
super-cheap - though my understanding is, hotels will generally prefer 
to let space go un-rented than to rent it at a deep discount for the 
sake of "well, at least we'll get *something* out of it...", because 
they don't want to "train" people to the idea that haggling over rate 
for unsold rooms and meeting space might be productive...  Aside from 
that, I'm not sure where it would be possible to hold such an event 
without a major outlay of cash.

Or, alternatively, we could just do something that *does* require a 
major outlay of cash, and collect a fee from the participants to offset 
the cost of holding the event.  But I'm not sure that would go over 
well, and we'd have to either collect non-refundable fees in advance to 
secure a venue, or try to do it at the last minute and reserve the right 
to cancel the event at the very last minute if not enough participants 
sign up.

If you have any ideas, I'd be very interested to hear about them...

--Pat.