PodCamp NH

We have a ton of logos to gather for the event page and the event post and a good bit of updating to do on the sponsor list. Stay tuned. We’ll be updating things as we have more info on which sponsors are still committed, what new sponsors we have and more.

Meanwhile, we’d love to thank our venue, Marriott Residence Inn’s Harbor Events Center (@portwalkplace on Twitter)

The events center is made up of a customizable series of conference rooms under the blue awning of the Marriott, right in the heart of downtown Portsmouth. We’ll be having them move the walls to make 4 rooms for us. We will also have the large lobby for use as a registration area and hall way session area, and perhaps a board room as well. This will affect the sessions – before we had the room to accept them all. Right now, we’re going to try to accept them all, but I suggest proposing a session early, if we reach capacity we’ll need to pick and choose. Note: A portion of Saturday’s sessions will also be held at the Hilton next door to accomodate a conflict for the Harbor Events Center. We’ll have plenty of signs and helpers for the short walk after lunch.

Being in the heart of downtown Portsmouth, we will probably only offer limited food – we assume most people will want to wander around the restaurants downtown for lunch with groups of friends you meet here at PodCamp NH. We’ll keep you posted on that, however, and if you are attending on a budget and don’t want to have to worry about your lunch, let us know that also.

The after party will be in downtown Portsmouth Saturday night – stay tuned for more on that here.

If you registered previously for an overnight stay during the original summer date, you’ve become a sponsor. See how that works over on the event page – it’s at the bottom in red. If you need a different solution, please contact Leslie.

The whole PodCamp NH team is so excited for this!

PodCamp NH will Open for registration and coffee at 8:00AM on Saturday 10/23/2010 and Sunday 10/24/2010 and close at 5:00 PM each day.

First sessions will begin at 8:45 each day. A full schedule, including any available meals, snacks or meal times for hitting downtown Portsmouth (this venue is in the heart of downtown) will be posted to the blog shortly so you can plan you stay.

What is PodCamp?

Sponsors help us keep this event low cost for you to attend. Sponsors include:

TBA

OUR PLEDGE: PodCamp NH is not intended to turn a profit. Any funds donated above what we need to put on the event will go to a charity, to be voted on by PodCamp NH 2010 attendees should that occasion arise.

Did you Register for PodCamp this summer before the date change? Did you notice the name of your ticket changed? Here is what’s going on with that:

Folks who paid for the $50 and $75 sleepover packages are now considered micro sponsors. You are still registered to attend. Folks who registered and paid $75 may submit two names to me of attendees you’d like to attend, plus your logo, and I will add your two sponsored attendees who get to come and learn for free to the list for you. Folks at the $50 level may submit one name to me for their micro sponsorship.  Share the learning!

Please join me in thanking Portsmouth’s Marriott Residence Inn Harbor Events Center (on Twitter as @PortWalkPlace) for being our venue for PodCamp NH 2010, and especially Kara for helping get us set up.

Look for registration to reopen this weekend, and for emails from me if you already registered on how to proceed.

I can not tell you how many venues the team has talked to for PodCamp NH 2010, slated for October 23-24, 2010. None of them have been willing to budge on price so that I can warrant having PodCamp NH for an affordable price. Yet. I’m hoping this post flushes one out.

Yes, we do pay our venues. However, we are a low cost learning event with a handful of sponsors, so we have a price point. We are not a for profit event. We are a user-driven educational event.

If you are a venue who meets the criteria below, please comment and I’ll get in touch with you. I’ve tried colleges, high schools, hotels and theaters so far, and have run into several hurdles at each one.

1. Can hold up to 200 people

2. Internet Connection with Wifi that can sustain 200 people

3. Ability to cater lunches OR allow us to have food catered

4. Parking – free or low cost, and plentiful and easy to find. Street parking is not ideal.

5. Large room to use as keynote and open/close room, will hold all 200 people even if some standing. May also use for larger/big draw classes

6. Four break out rooms that can hold up to 40ish people each for smaller classes

7. All rooms on same floor with a gathering area for hall sessions and recharging between classes is preferable if possible

8. Projectors and Screens in each room a must, podium and mic nice but not required

9. Table or desk seating nice, but not required. Partial table seating/partial theater seating can also work

10. Wheelchair Accessible

11. In any of the following areas: Concord, Manchester

Hi everyone!

Just to keep you in the loop after our team call last night (Go Team!):

• We are looking at two dates in October 2010 and will update you once we clear it with the venue
• We will still be charging something to attend
• We are losing the sleepover component
• We will give folks who registered the chance to roll their registration over to the new dates or to cancel once we have the dates finalized
• We will be issuing full or partial refunds to those that need them once we rewrite the venue contract and figure out the new cost
• We will still have live music playing all weekend
• We will still be offering food and having an after party, though those details will change a bit as well
• We still have room for sponsors and sessions
• We still plan to have Battledecks and other cool stuff as listed

Stay tuned for the details as we get them, and we can’t wait to see you!

After lengthy team discussion and thorough analysis of the sign up rate, we have made the difficult decision to postpone PodCamp NH. It seems the Father’s Day weekend is a tough one for folks in the region, which we completely understand!

Please know that we will have a new date for you by next Tuesday, and that this event will still absolutely rock your socks off!

Please also know that this will affect the cost, and we will determine refund options for everyone next week as well – those who wish to attend on the new date who have paid will be accommodated, and those who can’t attend will as well.

Please stay tuned! The Eventbrite page has been temporarily disabled while we sort out the logistics of the change, and will be active again at the same address once we work out the kinks next week.

(And yes, this is still an active event seeking both session leaders and sponsors, it is simply going to be on a weekend that works better for everyone so that more people can attend and learn and make connections.)

We’d like to thank Microsoft, Tungle and Awareness for becoming our first three sponsors of PodCamp NH 2010!

We’ll be adding logos as they come in…

MICROSOFT (Sponsor)

MicroArts (Friend of PodCamp NH)

(Sponsor)

(Friend of PodCamp)

We are so excited to see you starting to sign up to attend, sponsor or lead a session for this year’s PodCamp NH! We can’t even begin to fully express how phenomenal this event is going to be, especially with the added element of dorm life to foster even closer bonds and extended learning and teaching and creating for those who can stay. We also hope that the availability of the dorms at a low rate makes it easier for our friends from PodCamps all over the world to come and be part of this unique experience with us.

PodCamp NH 2010 is the second PodCamp here in NH, and most assuredly the most unique. We are opening our arms to everyone, not just social media types, because social media is simply part of the lexicon now. We want the techies, the coders, the creatives (film, music, photography, art, design, etc), the comedians, the marketers, the psychologists… the list goes on. We want to help everyone add these tools to what they do, learn new things, and grow.

This is YOUR PodCamp. You can sign up for sessions and see proposed sessions on the sessions tab (above), to sponsor on the sponsor tab. If you don’t want dorm life, there is a list of hotels under travel (though none have offered to match the spectacular dorm rate yet!). Registration is open over on Eventbrite.  Of note, we know it’s on Father’s Day weekend, and we encourage you to bring your children and parents during the day by using the Day Pass option. We have limited dorm accommodations so those overnight tickets are reserved for the adults. There is plenty of room at this one for everyone to grab one of the types of tickets and be part of it, and we even hope that some of the younger and older generations might want to lead sessions as well.

Meanwhile, here is a taste of what’s already on deck for this fabulous event:

PodCamp NH is designed to foster learning, teaching and to strengthen the bonds of the NH community. We’re taking over the dorms at New Hampton School this year. Not just because it’s cool (it is) but because we know that being around creative, smart, savvy, fun people for longer than just 8 hours at a time is going to foster bonds that last far beyond the weekend. We won’t be a bit surprised to see new startups, new film or music projects, new teams, new collaborations and new friendships forming in this PodCamp NH 2010 incubator.

Are you ready? At the end of PodCamp NH we’ll be a better NH, and a better us.

At our disposal:

A theater, smart classrooms with projectors, dorms, full cafeteria with amazing restaurant quality food, music, a master classroom fully integrated with audio and video, a computer lab, a library, a lounge, parking, tennis courts, soccer fields, and so much more.

Who should come:

If you miss college, if you wanted to go to college and couldn’t, if you love to learn or teach, if you have a film or music project you’ve been waiting to do, if you want to make an app, if you want to be a better educator, marketer, government rep or more – this is the weekend to make it happen.

Be One Of Our Sponsors

Lead One Of Our Sessions

Be One Of Our Volunteers

Register for PodCamp NH 2010!

We’re all working hard on bringing you the best PodCamp NH 2010 possible. We have our venue (New Hampton School), we’ve made it a sleepover camp with use of the dorms, and we have our very first sponsor (Microsoft)!

Stay tuned to this page as we get more information for you. If you have a company or individual who would like to sponsor, have them contact PCNH founder Leslie Poston via email or one of the other team members.