The FUDCon Venezuela team has pushed as hard as possible to make it possible to hold FUDCon at Margarita Island, however, several complications have made this goal difficult to achieve. The prices for hotel rooms have increased dramatically, major sponsors have declined to help with an event so far from their offices, and the local team has been too far from the island to be efficient in their organization. In order to still have a FUDcon at Venezuela inside the time-frame for LATAM (June to August), I would like to propose the following changes:
======== New Location ======== Move FUDcon to the city of Valencia. Valencia is the capital city of Carabobo State, and the third largest city of Venezuela. The Valencia airport, Arturo Michelena International Airport (VLN), is the nation's third busiest. It is served by all major Venezuelan airlines. For more information about Valencia, please check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valencia,_Carabobo,_Venezuela.
Some of the reasons to choose Valencia as alternative city are:
* More local participation: This new location will make it easier to bring people from the mainland of Venezuela and from several colleges in the five nearby states using local resources. The city of Valencia has 26 local colleges. * Less expensive location: Hotels are WAY less espensive in Valencia. Because of the travel season, the preferred hotels in Margarita have dramatically increased their prices, and the increase in price would make it difficult to provide subsidies for a large number of participants. * Easier logistics: The logistics of trying to get a large number of participants from the mainland to Margarita Island was substantial, and weighed heavily in the decision to move the event to Valencia. Members of the organizing team live much closer to Valencia, and they can use volunteers from other communities that have been helping with previous free software events to make easier work of the planning and organization.
======== New Date ======== FUDcon LATAM has suffered several changes in dates, mostly due to the fact that every date we had selected collided with other international events that involved several of our attendees. In order to try to please as many people as we can, we have already changed the event dates two times. This has brought some issues.
Changing locations will be a huge challenge. However, since there is a strong local team in the Valencia area, things will be much easier. The new (and final) dates for FUDcon LATAM 2012 will be 23-24-25 August (and 26 for those who want to spend a FUDpub at Beach - Yes, we will still have an optional day at the beach). I would have liked to pick the last week of August, however, some people will want to attend LinuxCon, which will be held from August 29-31. I feel that moving the event to August will allow for better preparation and organization of the event, and allow for greater local participation.
========== Call for Help =========== We need your help! We not only need people who are excited about attending the event, but we also need people willing to work hard to get all the preparations in place ahead of the event. We plan on having weekly FUDCon planning meetings again, and we encourage everyone with an interest in helping to join the meetings and help out. In particular, we could use help with:
* Design: Some designs might need changes * Money: Call for additional Sponsor * Marketing: Help in spreading the word about our event * Organization: If you're in Venezuela, (doesn't matter if you're not part of Fedora team) Contact us ASAP - If you're out Venezuela, drop all your ideas at Wiki or through mail.
========== Travel Subsidies =========== As usual, there will be a limited budget available for travel subsidies. To requests a travel subsidy, pleast fill out a ticket in our FUDCon Planning Trac system at https://fedorahosted.org/fudcon-planning/newticket. The FUDCon planning team will consider requests based on a number of criteria, including relevance to the event, how critical that request is, the specific deliverables it will enable, the proximity of the traveler, and the amount of the request. Please note that the subsidy is intended to help offset the cost of travel and sleeping accomodations, but typically don't cover taxis, food, sightseeing, passport or visa fees, or any other personal expenses. For more information on subsidies, visit http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Sponsoring_event_attendees
Travel subsidies should be filed no earlier than 21 May 2012, and no later than 17 June 2012.
========= Next FUDCon LATAM Planning Meeting =========== Our next FUDCon Planning meeting will be held on Friday, May 18th at 18:00 UTC in the #fudcon-planning IRC channel. We'll discuss these changes in the meeting and try to come to an agreement, we apreciate your support and understanding. We are working hard to bring you a great FUDcon in Venezuela. To see that time in your local time zone, visit http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2012&month=05&...
I hope to see you in the meeting to discuss any questions or concerns you might have with these changes. After the meeting is done and we've come to a consensus on the changes, we will update the wiki with the updated information.