Hi all, The publicity's up, the word's out, the gremlins have been beaten senseless with 4x2s and the usual appalling jokes, and now it's time to get ready for the day. A quick recap (since I've lost track of what's happened on which list): * we're putting on a bunch of (short, hourly) presentations at S Block on Saturday the 20th * Nandor Tanzcos is opening * we're hoping to see a whole bunch of people wanting to know more about F/OSS software * preparations are under way to kit the place out with PCs and have them doing hopefully-interesting stuff * there's also the -tiniest- suggestion of a hint that we might be implying that we're there to help answer questions, solve problems, and help out installing stuff. The only remaining worries now are: * nobody comes * EVERYBODY comes It's the latter I'm thinking about. We need to be sure of a core of people who'll be there on the day (it doesn't have to be the whole day), who can offer expertise in areas that people might come with questions about. Know how to painlessly burn CDs? How to walk a Windows user through what's different about Gnome or KDE desktops? How to build documents in OpenOffice? How to safely camp in Tremulous? Then you can help. You don't need to be an expert: if you know enough to be useful, and also know what your limitations are, then that's enough right there to get someone started on the basics and if you hit the wall to pass them on to the next person on the list. So, after a quick chat with Bruce I figure the best way to manage this is to sign up with what we're each willing to help with. This'll mean that, in the event of things getting overwelming, we all know who we can pass thorny questions on to and who can help with triage on queues. And if we keep copies handy, we can discreetly look it up rather than relying on some dim idea that what's-'s-name-'ve-met-twice-three-months- ago might be able to answer the question of how to create a DVD menu. If that's you, adding yourself to the list will help hugely. www.wlug.org.nz/SFD%202008%20Hosts (yeah, I know. but WikiWords don't LIKE acronyms, and it's really a use-once-and-forget page anyway.) And, further to that: we can keep the day flowing, and keep people's interest, if we can be sure of spot presentations during the day. If you're comfortable with getting up front and talking for three minutes about Gimp, Firefox extensions, something weird you've done in Perl, or how Mandrake keeps your cat fed, that'd be great: add that too. These are particularly useful because it means that we can keep the technical lot fed between user-level main presentations, and the users fed in between tech-level main presentations. (and if the day -is- quiet, you might get let off the hook.) sweet as. bryce