London Perl & Raku Workshop 2025 + 2024 Feedback
16/12/24 08:09 by Lee Johnson
Do you want LPW to happen again in 2025? Then you need to make it happen. You need to start thinking about this now. After Lee's closing talk, which detailed how organisation of the 2024 workshop worked and effectively put out a call for organisers for the future, a small number of attendees hinted they would be able to help out in one way or another. For that we are grateful.
However there is no core organising team yet for 2025. Someone, ideally two or three people, need to step up and explicitly say "we are going to organise LPW 2025". If you need help around any of this then we (the 2024 organisers) can guide you. The TPRF have also said they would like to explore how to support LPW 2025 and welcome potential organisers to join the monthly community meeting to discuss this.
Failing that LPW will be going on an indefinite hiatus again.
Responding to the 2024 feedback
Roughly one fifth of the attendees completed the feedback form, I'm showing the results here and will respond to (paraphrased-to-reatain-anonymity) feedback below.
I think it's clear that a variety of subjects is beneficial, with Perl still having the core focus. I should also say that I hope it was relatively clear that if you didn't attend certain topics then you pick the "did not attend" option not the "not useful" option (you don't know if something is useful or not unless you attend it). I don't know if that was the case though and there was some gaming of the form, which was a bit... well, whatever.
I think this is fair - as I explained in my talk, the venue is always a set of compromises and here I think we found the correct ones. Catering is a bonus, we could have spent more but decided not to. The size issue was probably the difference between the two rooms, which I cover below.
I think it's clear here as well that most people are satisfied with the current setup. Maybe there's some demand or appetite to have a longer workshop (2 days) but not enough for demand to change this. Most comments about the above essentially confirmed what we suspected (or Lee asked/questioned in his talk).
Well that's nice to know, thanks. And we also got positive feedback and thanks in the form as comments, so thanks for that as well. Below I'll respond to some suggestions, comments, and so on.
Acoustics in ballroom could be better / Some sound issues - yes, it was maybe down to the nature of the space.
The Library was too small for some talks. Mayby make it clear the size of the room will be selected based on signups so people pay more attention? / Second track was sometimes too full - When announcing the schedule I made it clear that attendees need to mark talks they plan to see in advance so we can choose the right rooms. In fact, it was the second sentence of the announcement. This was cross posted to the usual places. I did the same in another post a bit later. I don't know how I can make it clearer. This is always a problem at multi track events, I think we do OK. Roughly 50% of attendees marked their talks.
It was hard to find the venue, as it was tucked back and not obvious. - The workshop site had details of the venue, including a map. We had signs up on the venue doors. Maybe we could have had one outside, but I'm not convinced that's a viable option given the location. We will put a photo of the venue on the site next time.
Allow more "general open source" topics, and possibly including topics intended/useful for managers - We allow just about any talk on just about any subject, people need to submit them.
A Telegram or Whatsapp or whatsoever chat group for the attendees would have been nice. - Good idea.
Do not need to provide swag - Yes, but some people complain when they don't get a t-shirt. I don't want to do t-shirts anyway, but thought the scarves were a nice thing (and useful). Plus cheaper and easier. All other swag was provided by sponsors, which we allow them to do because it is an incentive for them to sponsor us.
Next time, maybe allow one or two "partner" level sponsors? - Getting companies to sponsor us is hard. Really really hard. I talked about this at the end. That said, this might work so we will look into it.
Probably also a Wiki [would be useful], though I'm not sure about the costs. - The workshop site (ACT) supports a wiki. We will add a link to it on future workshop sites and suggest attendees use it.
That's all for now. Thanks to this year's sponsors, without whom LPW would not have happened:
London Perl & Raku Workshop 2024: Recordings & Thoughts
07/11/24 07:31 by Lee Johnson
Recordings of all talks from this year's London Perl & Raku Workshop are now available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxNdCz2kBhVlzbVFcjwY6GkQf4zBhvwFn.
The sound quality of the recordings is not fantastic. We had some sort of issue that I've tried to fix in post. However, the auto generated captions by YouTube tend to be pretty good these days, so enable those if you have any problems understanding the speaker.
I go into the details a bit more about this in a personal blog post about the event, and how much effort is involved in trying to create the recordings, amongst other things.
Thanks to this year's sponsors, without whom LPW would not have happened:
London Perl & Raku Workshop 2024: Quick Afterwords
28/10/24 13:48 by Lee Johnson
A longer blog post will follow, likely on my personal site (I'll try to avoid it sitting in my drafts folder for too long). In the meantime, thanks to all who attended, spoke, volunteered, helped, advertised, promoted, linked to, encouraged, and so on, this year's London Perl & Raku Workshop. I think it worked out.
Scarves. This year's surprise swag, a 20th anniversary scarf rather than the usual t-shirt. We sill have a few of these left and I'm happy to send you one if you cover the cost of postage and packaging (roughly 15.- CHF). Please email the organisers if you would like one. It wil be first come (emailed) first served. Any that remain I will probably take to GPW next year to give away.
Videos. I will be processing these over the next couple of weeks. Expect them to be available on YouTube sometime mid November.
Feedback. If you attended the workshop it will really help us if you fill in the feedback form. All questions are optional and it is anonymous. Approximately 120 people attended the workshop - if half of you can complete the form that would be smashing.
Next Year? We have no plans. Yet.
Thanks to this year's sponsors, without whom LPW would not have happened:
London Perl & Raku Workshop 2024: 10 Days To Go
16/10/24 07:06 by Lee Johnson
It's a little over a week until this year's London Perl and Raku Workshop. Here's a couple of things to note about the day.
The schedule is relatively fixed at this point, however if you haven't already starred the talks you plan to attend then please do so as this will inform any tweaks. The venue has a large room (150 people) and a smaller room (35 people) therefore it is helpful to know which talks might be heavily attended in advance so we can make sure those talks have enough space.
The venue, The Trampery in Old Street, is located a two minute walk from the Northern Line's Old Street tube station in central London. The Northern Line has stops at most of the major train stations in London, or trivial links to others, so we recommend taking the tube to get to the venue.
The venue will open at 9am, or a little before then, and talks are scheduled to start at 9:30am. There will be some opening snacks for those who skipped breakfast, and coffee, tea, and water will be available throughout the day without the need for dedicated drinks breaks. We have planned 10min between each talk, allowing ample time for refills.
Attendees are expected to make their own plans for lunch. Although the area nearby is busy during the week, it's quiet at the weekend, and there are plenty of options in the immediate area. We will have an afternoon snack break at about 3pm.
The London Perl and Raku Workshop will take place on 26th Oct 2024. Thanks to this year's sponsors, without whom LPW would not happen:
London Perl & Raku Workshop 2024: Call For Volunteers
30/09/24 13:45 by Lee Johnson
This year's London Perl and Raku Workshop is just 4 weeks away. We now have a pretty full schedule, so the call for presentations is now closed, however we might have room for one or two more talks depending circumstances on the day. If you really think you have talk you want to give then get in touch.
As part of the workshop we would like to ask attendees if any are willing to volunteer for helping out on the day. This will likely include:
- Room monitoring and video equipment operation
- Registration of attendees
- General assistance of organisers and attendees
We are probably looking for three people to help out on the day. Please contact the organisers if you would like to help out.
The London Perl and Raku Workshop will take place on 26th Oct 2024. Thanks to this year's sponsors, without whom LPW would not happen:
London Perl & Raku Workshop 2024 Schedule Now Available
04/09/24 07:28 by Lee Johnson
The schedule for this year's London Perl & Raku Workshop is now visible: https://act.yapc.eu/lpw2024/schedule. Please please please (please please) make a point to mark those talks that you plan to attend as this will allow us to tweak the schedule a bit if some talks are more heavily favourited than others.
The venue opens for attendees at 9am and we plan to start talks at 9:30am. Drinks will be available throughout the day, hence no need to have dedicated breaks there. Lunch will be at midday for an hour, there are plenty of options close to the venue to grab something to eat. If we receive a couple more sponsors we can have lunch at the venue, but currently that won't be possible.
There are a couple of spots left for talks, otherwise the schedule is full. Please don't let this put you off submitting a talk as it's possible some speakers may have to change their plan.
You'll note that there are three "Open Sessions" in the The Study. This room can hold 15 people seating with room for a presenter. We can host a breakout, BOF, hackspace, whatever you suggest. There will be no recording facility in this room, but if no suggestions are made we will likely use it to schedule some of the remaining talks.
The London Perl and Raku Workshop will take place on 26th Oct 2024. Thanks to this year's sponsors, without whom LPW would not happen:
LPW 2024 Will Have A Third Track
29/08/24 07:38 by Lee Johnson
Hi All! Given the number of talks submitted to this year's London Perl & Raku Workshop we have decided to reserve a third room in the venue. This will give us a bit more room on the schedule for talks, which is good as the other two rooms are now 90% full.
However, we would also like to use this third room for something else. Its capacity is relatively low, 15 people including the person presenting, so we feel it might be suitable for use as a breakout room / mini hackathon(s) / birds of a feather; and we will probably reserve two large slots for this. If you have an idea of something you'd like to use the room for then please get in touch with us.
Another way we can make more space for talks is to opt for lunch at the venue, this will free up space for three more talks. To do that we need a couple more sponsors so if you would like to help with that then please have a look at the options here: https://act.yapc.eu/lpw2024/sponsoring.html
The London Perl and Raku Workshop will take place on 26th Oct 2024. Thanks to this year's sponsors, without whom LPW would not happen:
Second Batch of LPW 2024 Talks Accepted
21/08/24 10:34 by Lee Johnson
Yep, that's right - the second half dozen talks have been accepted for this year's London Perl and Raku Workshop. This puts our schedule at approximately 80% full, so if you are thinking about talking at the workshop then submit your proposal now!
The CFP will be closed at the end of September to give speakers sufficient time to finish their presentations and to allow the schedule to be created. We encourage all attendees to mark talks they are interested in as that will inform some of the schedule choices.
If you aren't thinking about talking then have a think about what you've been doing in the Perl and/or Raku space the last five years, or even just the general IT and development space. Perhaps there's something interesting you can talk about? If you don't feel it's a full fat talk then submit a lightning talk instead.
The London Perl and Raku Workshop will take place on 26th Oct 2024. Thanks to this year's sponsors, without whom LPW would not happen:
If you would like to sponsor LPW then please have a look at the options here: https://act.yapc.eu/lpw2024/sponsoring.html
First Batch of LPW 2024 Talks Accepted
27/07/24 12:52 by Lee Johnson
Yep, that's right - the first dozen talks have been accepted for this year's London Perl and Raku Workshop. This puts our schedule at approximately 50% full, so if you are thinking about talking at the workshop then submit your proposal now!
If you aren't thinking about talking then have a think about what you've been doing in the Perl and/or Raku space the last five years, or even just the general IT and development space. Perhaps there's something interesting you can talk about? If you don't feel it's a full fat talk then submit a lightning talk instead.
The London Perl and Raku Workshop will take place on 26th Oct 2024. Thanks to this year's sponsors, without whom LPW would not happen:
If you would like to sponsor LPW then please have a look at the options here: https://act.yapc.eu/lpw2024/sponsoring.html
Confirming The LPW 2024 Venue & Date
15/05/24 12:47 by Lee Johnson
We're happy to confirm the venue and date of this year's London Perl & Raku Workshop.
When: Saturday 26th October 2024
Where: The Trampery, 239 Old Street, London EC1V 9EY
This year's workshop will be held at The Trampery, at Old Street. A dedicated modern event space in central London. We have hired both The Ballroom and The Library; allowing us to run a main track for up to 160 attendees, and second smaller track for up to 35 attendees.
The Trampery in Old Street is located a two minute walk from the Northern Line's Old Street tube station in central London. The Northern Line has stops at most of the major train stations in London, or trivial links to others, so we recommend taking the tube to get to the venue.
If you haven't already, please signup and submit talks using the official workshop site: https://act.yapc.eu/lpw2024/
Thanks to this year's sponsors, without whom LPW would not happen:
If you would like to sponsor LPW then please have a look at the options here: https://act.yapc.eu/lpw2024/sponsoring.html
LPW 2024 - Call For Papers and Sponsors
01/05/24 18:59 by Lee Johnson
The London Perl & Raku Workshop (LPW) will take place this year on Saturday 26th October and you are encouraged to submit your talk proposals now. We have already had 30 registrations for the workshop so we anticipate a good turnout this year.
We welcome proposals relating to Perl 5, Raku, other languages, and supporting technologies. We may even have space for a couple of talks entirely tangential as we are close to finalising the venue (very central London) and should have room for two tracks.
Talks may be long (40mins), short (20 mins), or very short (aka lightning, 5 mins) but we would prefer talks to be on the shorter side and will likely prioritise 20min talks. We would also be pleased to accept proposals for tutorials and discussions. The deadline for submissions is 30th September.
We would really like to have more first time speakers. If you’d like help with a talk proposal, and/or the talk itself, let us know - we’ve got people happy to be your talk buddy!
Register (it's free!) and submit your talk on the workshop site.
We would also like to make a call for sponsors - does your company want to support the workshop? By sponsoring LPW you can demonstrate your support for the Perl and/or Raku languages and nurture your relationship with the local developer community. Much more information can be found on the workshop site along with a sponsor prospectus.
As well as the benefits as listed on the aforementioned page, sponsors will all feature in blog posts, news posts, social media posts. That starts right now, with our first sponsors who have already generously sponsored the workshop:
With thanks from The London Perl & Raku Workshop 2024 organising team.
Email Issues Registering / Sign Up / Password Reset
27/04/24 19:09 by Lee Johnson
We're aware that some users are not receiving emails when trying to register, sign up, or reset their passwords.
It appears that some email providers are rejecting the mails from ACT, if you try again (and, as usual, check spam) you might succeed. The alternative is to try an different address.
We are looking into the issue and hope to have this fixed soon.
Announcing The London Perl & Raku Workshop 2024 (LPW)
22/04/24 10:34 by Lee Johnson
Hey All,
Yes, we're back we'd like to announce this year's LPW:
WHEN: TBC, most likely Saturday 26th October 2024
WHERE: TBC
Please register and submit talks early - it gives us a better idea of numbers. The date is tentative, depending on the venue, but we'd like to aim for the 26th October 2024.
This will be the 20th anniversary of LPW (in terms of years, not number of events). We might try to do something special...
The venue search is currently in progress. The 2019 venue has turned into a boarding school so we can't use that any more due to safeguarding issues. We don't want to go back to the University of Westminster so we are searching for a venue.
If you can help out with the venue search that would be great - does your company have a large enough space to host us? Are you part of a club, organisation, university, school, etc that can provide space? Have you been to an event in central London recently that might be a suitable venue?
Here's roughly what we're looking for. Obviously requirements are a little flexible:
- Central London (Zone 1)
- Saturday 26th October 2024
- Available 9am to 5pm (with access 8am to 6pm)
- A main lecture hall / room with presentation facilities
- To seat at least 100 people + With PA system
- Optional second room, also with presentation facilities
- To seat at least 35 people
- Breakout room (optional) / reception / welcome area for stands/registration
- Video facilities are not required
- Catering facilities are required
- Tea, coffee, water, soft drinks, small snacks throughout the day
- Possibly lunch provided on site with dietary requirement options
- However if lunch is a significant cost we will leave people to sort that out themselves
Please register, submit talks, think about possible venues, and let us know via email.
Cheers!
The LPW Organisers
Sponsors
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