Well, I must say that the idea of having a real CMSMS conference has gone over better than I originally expected it to be. That's really good news. We have a lot of dedicated users, which is a great thing to have in any community. We discussed the idea yesterday and we're going to move forward with trying to put this together. We've had a few ideas as to where to hold it, but nothing in concrete. As an experiment, I've decided to open this up the community to see if someone will help us plan an event. What does this mean? We're looking to get several proposals together by the 22nd of April. We have a few ourselves, but we need more to really make a good decision. We're hoping that people in the community might have better ties with this sort of thing than we do on the dev team. We can make a good attempt, but you might know better. So what do you need? We're looking for a facility with the following specs:

• Able to hold roughly 100 people -- would be great if we could go bigger if we have more turnout than expected, but this is a good start
• Western Europe -- the more central the better, so that people can easily drive or train
• Nearby hotels and pubs -- it can't be out in the middle of nowhere. Would be great if we could get a group discount, but not necessary
• Nearby airport and/or train station -- bigger the better
• We need it for 2 days, plus an afternoon to setup. Friday to Sunday in mid-to-late August is best, but other dates could be considered
• We need a PA and a projector. If the facility doesn't have it, we'll have to rent those things for the weekend
• Reliable, fast internet access. Many, many geeks with laptops will attend, plus we'd like to stream what we can. Spotty internet would be disastrous
• Scenic and/or lots to do is a big plus

A rough price and availability would be fantastic, plus any contact details. There will be a fee to attend, so we understand it won't be free. However, price does factor in so we can charge something that isn't astronomical. What am I signing up for? By doing this, you're not necessarily signing up to run the whole thing. We can probably take care of it once a location is decided. We're just looking for a good place to hold the thing. Of course, having a local contact will make some things easier -- but we can probably handle the majority of it via the internet. We'll throw in free admission (and beer -- if you like that sort of thing) for the person who helps us out. And, of course, tons of recognition for all your hard work. :) If you can help out, please send an email over to ted at cmsmadesimple dot org before the 22nd with any and all details, and we'll put it into the voting. We want to announce the full details on or before May 1st, so stay tuned. Thanks!