Sue's Place

We need volunteers for specific unpaid but much-appreciated jobs. This year is a 2-day conference and doubles a lot of the work.

To volunteer, send email here or volunteer in comments.

In no particular order but all are important:

1. Take care of the t-shirt ordering – design a contest or just order them and handle all related to shirts, including figuring out how many of each size we need. We already have a tshirt vendor from last year with all logos digitized. Need participant and discussion leader styles.
2. Handle the bulk emailing – write the emails, do the sending. Requires good grammar and spelling. We have a web-based tool for this, a starter email list, and it’s not really hard, just nerve-wracking when you hit “send.”
3. Manage the dinner wiki. Requires some wiki experience. Need to work with our sainted food coordinator, who is returning, even after last year.
4. Manage the blog. Requires some WordPress experience. Nag presenters to post to the blog. Make sure comments are answered.
5. Interface with sponsors that we help set up, seek sponsors through sending a sponsor form and following up. Mostly email, some phone calls. Make sure we have banners, logos, etc. from sponsors on time. Make sure sponsor representatives are lined up and aware of their roles. More phone calls closer to the date. Requires good spelling/grammar and phone ability.
6. Talk to downtown businesses to put up a Welcome ConvergeSouth’ers signs and get the signs designed, printed and handed out to downtown businesses within a budget. Maybe get a couple of ConvergeSouth specials from businesses – creativity is required. But hey, we spend a lot of money in restaurants!
7. Manage the Friday transportation van; with a budget, make the van happen. Schedule the van. Give us the schedule to send out and print for the (2) main hotels.
8. You got programmers? We need back-end PHP programmers to do a registration database in MySQL. Would prefer to have registered users this year with ability to edit own responses.
9. Hogg has already volunteered (this is your notice, David!) for the ConvergeSouth community Aycock-neighborhood barbecue. We’re hoping that Ben and David and Matt once again provide support. And yes, Matt, we need banana pudding. The left-coasters are demanding it in lieu of speaking fees.
10. Are you a survey person? Draw up an online survey (surveymonkey.com) to use after ConvergeSouth 2007. Write it, get input, send it out, re-send it out, get results and share them with the whole committee.
11. Photographer/Videographer – we need a ConvergeSouth photog/videog who can take casual and some slightly more formal speaker pictures during the conference. My 3-yo Nikon doesn’t do well in the A&T auditorium. Would also suggest that those with pictures contribute to the Flickr group and use keyword “convergesouth2007.”
12. Design and print the printed program: create the printed program and get it duplicated and folded. A&T may do this for us as a favor. It’s b&w, will require last-minute changes. We have a template from 2005 for a 2-day conference that could be improved. Requires moderate knowledge of Word, the ability to copy & paste & edit, and some Valium 24 hours prior to the conference.
13. Music - help Ben and Jay manage two nights’ of music at different venues downtown. Requires some lifting, earplugs, and knowledge of what makes music venues work.
14. Hotel Coordinator: make arrangements with two hotels for preferential pricing and ensure details are done. Is mostly a telephone job and then letting the webmaster know which hotels are charging how much so we can get their information onto the Web site.
15. October 18: Join us for a pre-conference manicure or pedicure or facial or massage. This wonderful self-paid-for event is a rite of conference passage and helps maintain sanity.