Did I see a mention about grass?!  Wow, been a long time, but hell yes,
count me in.

Got some folks I need to see down Texas way, too...John Hurt, get the
grill ready!

Yeeeehaaa!


Ray Shahan


-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Denys Beauchemin
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 2:56 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [HP3000-L] GHRUG to host November HP3000 Conference

For the last few months, the Greater Houston Regional Users Group has
been
considering holding an HP3000-only users conference in November of 2006
in
the Houston area.  It was originally thinking of the last hurrah for the
3000 since the end of support was originally slated to be end of
calendar
year 2006.  With HP's surprise announcement in December, it had to hold
off
for a little bit to ponder such a move.

Earlier this month, the board of directors of GHRUG voted to schedule
and
start the planning and preparations for the only user-driven HP3000
conference in the world to be held in November of this year.  They have
asked me to initially spearhead the effort for the planning of the
conference.

Here are some of the concepts with which we are working:

We would like to make the program very focused on the wants and needs of
the
attendees and we do not have the resources for a full program committee
with
support staff and focus groups.  So we will use the Internet and email.
We
will give the prospective attendees the opportunity to have input on the
program itself.  This will be an HP3000-focused conference with possibly
three tracks for a total of 21-24 talks.  This can be adjusted as
needed.

a) Migration
b) Homesteading issues
c) MPE in general

Whilst this conference is totally user-driven without HP's assistance, I
fell confident that if we ask nicely vCSY might be able to send some
speakers, especially if very specific subjects are requested.

2- We are looking at a 3-day conference; Fri-Sat-Sunday and holding it
at a
university in the Houston area to minimize attendees' costs.  As such
the
cost will be $50/day or $125 for the 3 days.  This will cover the food
and
some of the incidentals like rental of AV equipment and to cover the
cost of
the proceedings.

3- The conference will not depend on vendors for its budget.  If vendors
want to attend and exhibit, tables will be available for a very nominal
fee,
probably less than $400.

There is a whole host of other items to consider and plan for, but for
right
now, it is imperative that we get a feel for the possible attendance.
Therefore, I would like you to respond to the following questions and
please
send the response to my email address denys at Houston dot RR dot com
and in
the subject line please write:  GHRUG November HP3000. 

a) Is the proposed length of the conference satisfactory?
b) Which subject would you like to see covered? Do you have a speaker in
mind and who would that be?
c) Would you like to give a talk and if so, what would be its content?
d) If you have comments or ideas, go ahead and share them.


I would encourage you to post to the list, but the message subject will
help
me track the responses.

This is a grass roots effort, so if you can pass the message around to
other
list servers, companies and whatnot, this will help a great deal.  GHRUG
also extends a warm invitation to our friends from overseas.  We are
planning to have this even in a location that will allow you to visit
some
interesting places; more on that at a later date.

As this effort gets underway, the GHRUG website will be updated with the
information.  If this starts to roll, GHRUG will prepare a more formal
call
for speakers which will request the usual details and provide deadlines
for
the talks so they can be included in the proceedings.

Because we do not have long lead times, for printing and mailing and
such,
the papers would have to be in by end of September, but the program
should
be pretty well firmed up before then so attendees would know what the
program would look like.

I look forward to seeing you in November.

Denys

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