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So here is the lowdown..

Get Warmed up at the Pre-Party

We will be warming up for Barcamp at Area 15 (512 E. 15th St. Charlotte, 28206) on Friday from 6.30pm till late; expect food and drinks to be available as you start your socializing. See old friends and faces from the past Barcamps, and meet the new people,  also enjoy live music and a few acts as we get the weekend started.

The pre-party is free – so just head down there from 6.30pm onward and start planning your pitches and getting connected.

The Big Day

Barcamp will be starting at 9.00am on Saturday morning at Area 15 (512 E. 15th St. Charlotte, 28206).

Remember the whole day is completely free thanks to the amazing support of our sponsors.  Here is a run down of the day:

9.00am – Free breakfast and coffee!
9.30am – Introductions – Shout out to our sponsors
9.45am – Pitches – Tell us what you want to say
10.10am – Voting – Tell us what you want to hear
10.30am – Morning Sessions – Find your sessions and get comfortable
10.45am – First Sessions – 6 concurrent sessions
11.45pm – End of First Sessions – Chat with your group then find your next session
12.15pm – Second Sessions – 6 concurrent sessions
1.15pm – End of Second Sessions – Ask questions then head to lunch
1.15pm- 2.30pm – Free Lunch will be available (food and drinks!)
2.30pm – TEDxCharlotte – Hear a little about the upcoming event
2.40pm – Pitches - Tell us what you want to say
3.00pm – Voting - Tell us what you want to hear
3.20pm – Afternoon Sessions  - Find your sessions and get comfortable
3.30pm – Third Session  - 6 concurrent sessions
4.30pm – End of Third Sessions  - Chat with your group and find your next session
5.00pm – Fourth Session  - 6 concurrent sessions
6.00pm – End of Fourth Session – Then head to the post-party!

Share your experiences and wind down at the Post Party

From 6.00pm onward on Saturday night Lightbulb Co-Working (1430 South Mint Street, Suite 103, 28203) will be hosting out post party.
The perfect place to go to finish out your day with free drinks and food.

Talk about all you have learnt during the day,  share your thoughts on the discussions and get your networking in!
We hope to see you over the weekend!

The Organizers

We’ll be getting more details out soon – but in the meantime mark your calendars – April 10th 2010 (4/10/10) – are Area Fifteen NODA.

If you are interested in sponsorship or helping please ping us at @barcampclt.

Pictures are starting to appear on flickr and video on youtube and please keep uploading,  we’ll be pulling it together later in the week.   Beside the odd technical hiccup everything pretty much ran to schedule, and we hope that if it was your first Barcamp to got a chance to see how different it is and if you are coming back for more – please keep on coming back!

Barcamp is always made by the people that come,  but we wanted to call out a few people for the extra work they put it (if we miss anyone DM us and we’ll fix it!).

Justin Ruckman (late night t-shirt designing, site maintaining and poster creating), Carlos Espin (running around opening doors and finding tires), James Yoder (ok – pretty much the whole pre-party!), David Zimmerman (shopping listing, cooking and helping), Brian Flaherty (holding up the whole Barcamp process), Brent Hall (making expresso and never stopping brewing), Desiree (poster painting, prepping), Jen and Brian Sheilds (all the art at the pre-party), Scott Nedderman (writing the schedule application on the day! and Netphase was a sponsor),  Susan Spalding (there every step of the way and doing everything to get us ready), Joshua James (crazy network cabling and desktop set-up),  James Wilamor (camera in hand all night and day), Andrew Maier (cooking up a storm and helping everywhere), Olga (handling planning and helping out everywhere), David Kyle (sorting out desktops, rooms and more) – if there are more DM us – or e-mail (philip.dodds@me.com).

Once again – THANK YOU – to everyone who worked so hard on the event and also for everyone that came and made it such a fun day – we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did and we’ll see you all next time (oh yes – there will be a next time!).

We’ll be down at what is called the Roofless Building 1210 Parkwood Ave, Charlotte, NC – Just around the corner from our Area Fifteen hosts.  To give you an idea of some of the things going on:

* Counter Cuture Coffee will be serving iced expresso’s and latte’s
* Comedy with RobotJohnson
* Live music with Machete and Nitara
* Fire Spitting, fire wand eating and dancing with hand candles (should be fun!)
* Wine, beer and soft drinks

It should be a lively night and a great chance to meet you fellow Barcampers as well as getting to meet the team behind the upcoming Not Just Coffee Coffeeshop.  NJCC is a new co-operative in the city and this will be your first chance to learn about how you can own a little of their future as well as supporting a great new business and meeting area in their area.

Volunteer Meet-up – Sunday Oct 11th 4pm – Area15

If you are able to volunteer to help with Barcamp please make sure you fill in our spreadsheet – we are short of people right now and still looking!

This Sunday at 4pm we’re meeting outside Area Fifteen to plan for the day of BarCamp, including everything that needs to be done in advance. If you want to help us organize the event, please come out and help! And if you have any questions please contact Philip (philip.dodds@me.com).

Finding the Pre-Party

1210 Parkwood Ave
Charlotte, NC 28202

Google Maps Link

We are also looking for volunteers and equipment for the day – the big things now are projectors, desktops with screens, PA’s and mics,  if can you help with time or equipment then please check out out planning page (http://barcampcharlotte.org/planning).

So whats going to happen?
Barcamp is a conference with content created by the attendees.  This means that we don’t know who is going to speak before the day, because they are going to be coming as well, pitching their talks or discussions and then letting you decide.  You won’t be hearing sponsored talked,  or from people payed or paying to speak – in true democracy you will be deciding what sort of conference you want.

Here is a schedule of the day:

9.00am - Door open / Coffee and Pastries

This is a chance to get into Area 15 and get a coffee and meet some of your fellow Barcampers.  You can polish your pitch and prepare yourself for voting.

9.30am - Start of the event – pitches and voting

A chance to hear a little about what Barcamp is and learn how we’ll be doing the process of pitches and voting.  If you are going to pitch a session then you’ll need to be able to get up and tell us what you want to talk about (also include any information on the level of technical knowledge needed so people aren’t left behind or bored).  After the pitches people will be able to mark up their choices.

10.30am-11.30am - First Sessions (we are hoping to have more available spaces this time)

Those pitches that were voted through will get a session room and we’ll be assigning these and then updating everyone.  This hour will be for the first sessions.

11.45am-12.45pm - Second Sessions

After 15 mins to switch rooms this hour will be for the second session.

12.45pm – 2pm – Cook out at Area Fifteen (with trailer grill and free food)

We will be setting up a trailer outside Area Fifteen for a cookout,  hopefully all the food will be free (and we’ll be thanking the sponsors!).

2pm-2.30pm - Community Pitches

We want to use the power of the people at Barcamp for good in Charlotte and beyond.  To that end we want to give the floor to local communitys looking to connect with people in the technology, social media and creative space.

2.30pm – 3pm – Pitches and Votes for Second Half of the Day

Much like the morning we’ll be taking pitches (or re-pitches) for the second half of the day.

3pm-4pm – Third Sessions

These will be the assigned forth sessions, based on the votes.

4.15pm-5.15pm – Fourth Sessions

These will be the assigned fourth sessions, based on the votes.

5.30pm-6.30pm – Fifth Sessions

These will be the assigned forth sessions, based on the votes.

6.30pm – 8pm – Lounge DJ and Networking

You can hang out with the people you met at Area 15 and listen to a low-key DJ and chat.  Its a great chance to reflect on the day.

We are looking forward to another great Barcamp! See you there

Your Barcamp Team

Mark your calendars because we have locked in a date for Charlotte’s second Barcamp event.  We are still in the early stages of planning with six weeks to get our ducks in a row.  The event will once again be an all day unconference hosted at Area Fifteen in the NODA district (you can also follow Carlos and Area15 on Twitter).   Also we will be holding a pre-party on Oct 16th in NODA – more details of that will follow.

We are still working out the schedule for the day, so there might be some small changes,  however we have posted the agenda for the day.  Also we are hoping to raise more money this time based on the success of the last event,  and so our aims are to provide free food for lunch – in the form of a cook-out outside Area Fifteen and also free t-shirts for as many people as possible!

With the ball starting to roll we will be once again looking for sponsors for the event and have set-up some new sponsorship levels.  If you are interested in sponsoring the event please do contact us,  you can either send us a message through the site or directly e-mail us.   Will will be pushing the planning through the site as well, and should start getting requirements out in the coming week.

Please do spread the word,  update your profile on the site and start creating and signing up for groups around your interests (also we have created a specific group for Barcamp Charlotte 2, please do join if you are planning on coming).   If you are interested in sponsoring or know people that might be drop us a line.

Thanks and looking forward to seeing everyone in Oct

The Barcamp Charlotte Team