General Meeting Agenda

Meeting

• 6:30-6:45 speaker greet & A/V setup test
• 6:45-7:00 mingling
• 7:00-7:15 Welcome and Announcements
  • Welcome: Welcome to Austin on Rails, thanks for coming out
  • Introduction: Emcee introduces themselves, who they are, how long they've been attending, job role, experience with Rails, etc.
  • Announcements: does anyone have any community announcements relevant to the Austin Rails commmunity? Upcoming events, conferences, etc?
  • Housekeeping: Explain where the bathrooms are, describe basic Agenda, thank Capital Factory for hosting
  • Agenda: Outline the basic flow of the meeting: Announcements, Speaker 1, Break / Raffle, Speaker 2, Closing, Adjourn to BD Riley's for Socialization Practice Food Sponsor speaks if quick spiel desired (2-3 minutes MAX)
• 7:15-8 Speaker 1 (including q&a, so the target for a full-length speaker slot should be 35-40 minutes, plus 5-10 mins for questions)
• 8:00-8:15 Hiring and Looking Survey, Bathroom break, brief social interaction, raffle
  • Polls - Who is looking for Rails positions? (show of hands) Who knows of Rails positions or is hiring? (show of hands) - Folks should gather off to the left of the stage during the break if they are hiring or looking. This is a quick connection point but a longer opportunity will be available directly after the meeting.

Raffle

Open up a browser window to "Rafflr":http://rafflr.com/ and make a new raffle Have attendees who wish to be in the raffle enter their names in the box Before you run the raffle, copy the names to a temp text file (just in case the network craps out at an inopportune moment)

Run the raffle - Skip the intro ("skip this nonsense"). Set the delay on the screen to 50 so it will go quick. You can actually have multiple winners in a single run. The protocol for selection should be from left to right/top to bottom, each person gets to pick from the available prizes. Hand out prizes as they are selected by the winners. Prizes are generally books provided by our technical publisher friends: Sitepoint, Pragmatic, O'Reilly, and Addison Wesley. Damon generally brings the books.

• 8:15 Herd the cats. Use advanced shouting techniques or obscure whistles if you must.

• 8:15-9:00 Speaker 2

• 9:00 Closing - Repeat the thanks for coming and mention that we now adjourn to BD Riley's for good conversation and beverages. Down the Brazos hill and take a left on 6th. It's on the left. Head to the back of the place.

• Drink Sponsor if spiel desired can speak (2-3 mins MAX) - at the very least, even if no spiel make sure to mention that the sponsor will be providing some beverages over during Socialization Practice!