Planning: Northwest Connects

Please join the Google Group to continue this conversation:

http://groups.google.com/group/north-west-connect

To subscribe, visit http://groups.google.com/group/north-west-connect, and click ‘join this group’to login to your Google account. Or compose an email to north-west-connect+subscribe@googlegroups.com and click send.

Yesterday at the Open Coffee Sligo meeting, the conversation turned to the inevitable: many events happening in Dublin… why not in the northwest? Soon we had the makings of a two day event which can showcase the best, brightest, most inspiring and positive things happening in the northwest region. As Fergus (Cosy Stoves) said, “People don’t realise what is going on their own backyard.”

Aidan McKenna (Healthcare Rates) came up with the name Northwest Connects, suggesting we can make connections from business to business to community to arts. There are lots of people doing great things: starting companies, offering services, doing good things in the community and we need a chance to showcase these. We liked the user-generated BizCamp structure and approach, but through discussion we wanted to expand out, beyond just business to include community, education/training, arts, and so on.

The catchment area could include: Donegal, Sligo, Fermanagh, Mayo, Leitrim, Galway and Roscommon.

The event will be co-organised locally by members of the Open Coffee Sligo group. If you wish to help organise you can sign up on the spreadsheet described below. Write in what you can offer, and put your own name down. You can also write in a suggestion and we can find a volunteer to follow up on it.

The two days would be structured to include a good start and good finish, keynote speakers and blocks of concurrent tracks; as well an exhibition area, and poster area to allow for people/companies to share information about their services. The event will be hosted at IT Sligo, with the date to be determined. Likely, the end of October. If you know of any potential timing conflicts, please suggest alternatives.

The event will be entirely free, and speakers will be invited to speak for free. Though hopefully we can offer accommodation to anyone coming from outside of town. The incentive for speaking is a chance to showcase your company/service/community initiative.

There are alot of questions which remain, and which we need to determined soon.

1) Who is the audience?

2) What is the goal/outcome?

3) What sponsors and speakers can we attract?

4) A specific structure for the event.

Denise Rushe (@sligoevents) set up the Google Group where we can start the conversation about this event.

To subscribe, visit http://groups.google.com/group/north-west-connect, and click ‘join this group’to login to your Google account. Or compose an email to north-west-connect+subscribe@googlegroups.com and click send.

There we can talk about who to contact, what to ask for, sponsors, speakers, etc.

We already have two sponsors! Eddie Johnston (Lickable Wallpaper ) is preparing a website/contact point. And Aidan McKenna (http://twitter.com/amckenna78 ) is sponsoring the domain name. Give ‘em a pt on the back next time you see them

If you have any questions/ideas/devil’s advocacy services, please join the Google Group and we can start the conversation there. Of course you can also email me personally hjames at gee mail dot com