We had the first real organistation meeting last night for the 2010 Digital Conference.  Here are my notes from the conference call.

1) When should we have the conference?  Options were last two weekends in May or the last two weekends in September.  We walked through the possible options and based on different factors (availability of leaders, conflicts with other ham radio events, national holidays) we decided on September 18th, 2010.

    AI: Kenny will follow up with Josh to nail down the conference space (done)
    AI: We need to publish date as soon as second key detail is known, cost of conference.
    
2) Register with ARRL
    AI: Phil is going to own setting up ARRL event paperwork
    AI: Phil is going to be the PIO for event
    AI: Phil will target getting into Mike & Key booklet and having event published on different key websites. (Federal Way ARC, N7CFO list, etc)

3) Speaker List / Topics Ideas
    The following suggested speakers were thrown out.
        * Ward Silver
        * Lyle
        * Dan Smith
        * Ward Cunningham
        * Jim Corenman
        * Alan Parson
    The following topic suggestions were thrown out.
        * DSP's in Amateur radio (Alan was recommended)
        * SDR's
        * Airmail development / future (Jim Corenman)

    Discussed idea of having half day of talks focused on d-star. No clear decision made, need feedback from attendees. (See below) Is there enough 'new' material?  Do people want a primer now that there is more interest?  What hasn't been talked about?

   AI: Kenny will start focusing on this part of the event.  Will drag into process Dennis, Bill and Scott.

4) Demo's / Workshops?
    Previously people wanted to have a demo area and the idea of having small workshops was brought up during the meeting.  We have space available in the conference room and had people trying to-do demo's last year.  Would people want a extra long lunch for demo's?  Break up into smaller 'workshop' groups in afternoon?  We need some feedback.

5) We kept coming back to needing / wanting feedback from attendees to plan the conference.  Decision was made to try a survey, polling all the people who attended the last two years.

    AI: Phil will figure out how to run a free survey using www.surveymonkey.com
    AI: Kenny (with feedback from group) will write up a list of questions
    AI: Goal to have out by weekend (1/30)

6) When do we announce the conference publicly?
    Before we announce the conference officially (this blog doesn't count. :-)  we need three critical things.

1. Need the data,
2. Need the conference space confirmed and
3. Need the cost of the event. 

We should have #1 and #2 in less then a week, but to get #3 we need to have a handle on the food costs.  Everybody agreed that our previous years food plan was good and we should continue with it.  So someone needs to reach out to Subway and get a quote for sandwiches, which is the largest food item.  
    
    AI: Scott will follow up with Subway on food costs (kenny will share details from last year to use as starting point)