[Board] FOSS4G North America

[Paul Ramsey]

Hi Board,

Rather suddenly, due to an existing event in Washington DC being
cancelled, an opportunity to have a FOSS4G-NA event has come up.
OpenGeo and RadiantBlue are leading the process right now, in terms of
the nuts and bolts of getting together a venue and bootstrapping the
start-up costs.

The dates are April 10 and 11.
The location is Washington DC at the downtown convention center there
<http://g.co/maps/76jhc>.
The pricing will be $120 / day, early bird.
If we make a profit, it'll be banked for a future event by the NA chapter.
The program will not include workshops this time around, for simplicity.

I am trying to put together a conference committee that reflects the
OSGeo community, as well as some new voices like the WhereCamp folks
in the east, and folks with ties into the government. While I imagine
the content will be the usual FOSS4G fare, we're trying to keep in
mind that the audience will be very DC-centric, in the same way our
audience in Denver had a strong western flavour.

I've asked Daniel and Peter to join the committee, and I hope they
will if they have time. If they don't, I'll be looking for other folks
like Dan, who can represent the developer community and Peter who can
represent the user community of OSGeo.

This is coming together a little crazily given the timelines, but I
think it'll be a good event, like the early MUM events, and provide a
basis for a more formal ongoing routine in the future.

I'm sure you're full of questions, please let them out.

Yours,

Paul