Twin Cities Give Camp

Date & Location Update

Donn Felker — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:06:25 GMT

Hello All,

It's time for a long needed update. First off, I apologize for not being more connected - going this long without an update will not be the norm from here on out. There has been a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes to get things rolling and we're finally able to make some moves.

Before we get into the nitty gritty details I'd like to introduce Brent Edwards. Brent is one of the other coordinators of the Twin Cities GiveCamp. I also coordinate, but GiveCamp is too much work for any single person to handle. You'll probably see postings, emails, etc that reference him or even come from him.

Before we can get things rolling we do have some good news and bad news. Lets start with the good news.

The Good News: We Found _a_ Charity To Work With
I have personally contacted over 30 charities and only a couple have responded with an open hand for us to help them. Only two had work we could actually help them with (others had scope beyond what GiveCamp can handle. Between those 2 only one of them could make the timeframe in which we had handed them. This left us with one charity to help. Those of you who have volunteered already know who this charity is.

The Bad News: Date & The Location
Originally New Horizons of Edina had offered to house the GiveCamp. Unfortunately due to reasons undisclosed they are not able to provide the facility services this time around. Unfortunately we found this out late in the game. Upon finding this out we contacted two other locations that had offered up space but the requirements were to difficult for them to meet in the given time line and they did not work out. Therefore, as of right now ... we have no place to house the GiveCamp on Nov. 14th/15th.

This is an odd situation to be in as the first thing you do when setting up a GiveCamp is secure a location. It's your most important resource other than you, the developers/designers/dbas/IT Pros. We are now 2.5 weeks from the event and we have no place to go.

So what do we do now? Microsoft has graciously stepped up to the plate and secured us a guaranteed spot in the Microsoft Bloomington offices. But, there is a catch. The earliest time we could get a guaranteed time would be in January. This is definitely not ideal as we have already postponed this event ONCE. Now we're having to postpone it a second time. Hopefully, three times a charm and this time around everything will fall into place. We already have food sponsors, coffee sponsors, give away's, XBox's to play while we're at the camp etc. We're ready to roll, but our location is not until January.

So when is the event? The event is going to be held on Jan. 15th - 17th. The 15th is a Friday. We will be starting after 12-noon (yes we know you might be at work still) and you can show up anytime after that.

We apologize for having to move the event date again but it looks like this third time should be the charm.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best Regards,

Donn Felker
Founder/Coordinator Twin Cities GiveCamp

Charities Update

Donn Felker — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:55:00 GMT

A quick update: We are in the process of identifiying the charities and non-profit organizaitons that will we will be helping this round. Over the next month and a half we will be sending out correspondance to charities, volunteers and organizers in regards to the logistics, business need and overall volunteering effort.

I (Donn Felker) will be at the MDC (Minnesota Developers Conference) next Wednesday (9/30/2009) and I will have fliers with me for the Give Camp. See you there.

TCGC #1 Postponed

Donn Felker — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:21:00 GMT

The first Twin Cities Give Camp has been postponed. This is not a decision that was made in the haste of the moment, but one that the entire TCGC Coordination Team (Founder, Coordinator, Business Analysts, etc) discussed over the course of the last couple of weeks. We decided that it would be necessary to reschedule in order to ensure that the event was a success.

Why are we postponing this event? Why wouldn't the event be a success? When it comes down to it, the Twin Cities Give Camp is very similar to a consultancy. We consult with various non-profit organizations & charities across the Twin Cities in hope that we can help them solve various technical problems within their organizations. This type of consulting also comes with a level of responsibility to ensure that the problem domain is properly identified and expectations are set and understood on both sides. This ensures that both parties are aware of what is to happen, and how things are to work. During the discovery phase of the first TCGC the organizations and our staff hit some roadblocks, ran into unforeseen issues which in turn forced us to both learn a new process along the way. With that said, it comes down to the business requirements of the tasks at hand. As we all know, these can be very difficult to nail down. The difficulty is also compounded by the fact that the Give Camp is only one weekend from start to finish. Some of the requirements were nearly complete, some were not even close. This was of no fault of any party, but of both - chalk that one up to the learning process of setting up an event like this.

How can we avoid this in the future? In order to ensure the future date is not moved we have decided to cut scope into much smaller units of work. The units of work will be cut down to the level of where one person could complete the work in under a day (6-8 hours). This enables us to properly match the resource with the task at hand. We also have increased our discovery phase and process. Learning along the way has its benefits and we're positive the future date will not be moved. We have already set up a few organizations with proper requirements (usually smaller tasks) and we will carry those forward into the next event.

When is the next event? The event will be moved to November 14th & 15th of 2009. Why so late in the year? As all of you Twin Cities residents are aware ... during the Minnesota summer _no_one_ stays inside. Asking a Minnesotan to give up a nice summer weekend is like asking a fish to not swim. Having this in the beginning of the winter will hopefully increase the volunteers as well as give us the ability to increase our output.

Again, we apologize for postponing this event, but we as a team feel that it is the best thing to do for the organizations. If you have any questions please let us know via our contact page.

New Horizons Sponsor

Donn Felker — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 01:07:12 GMT

New Horizons of Minnesota has graciously sponsored the Twin Cities Give Camp. They will be providing a location for the event to take place. Our biggest thank you goes out to this organization for helping out such a great cause.

Visit the New Horizons website to find out what great training they have available: www.nhmn.com

Event Date and Location Official

Donn Felker — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 01:04:00 GMT

The official date and location of the first Twin Cities Give Camp has been set! The event will take place on April 25th & 26th at New Horizons in Edina, MN. Visit the When & Where page for more info.

SVN Repository Sponsor

Donn Felker — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:55:00 GMT

We are happy to announce that SVN Repository will be sponsoring the Twin Cities Give Camp. During the Give Camp developers, dba's and designers will be developinng custom applications for charities. These teams will need to share files and ensure that a proper revert and back up strategy is in place while at the Give Camp. SVN Repository has been gracious enough to sponsor the Give Camp with an account to enable souce hosting.

Discount ASP.NET Sponsor

Donn Felker — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:51:00 GMT

We are happy to announce that Discount ASP.NET is now our hosting sponsor for the Twin Cities Give Camp. They have graciously sponsored us with hosting our site.

With that noted, we have moved from our previous host to our new Sponsor, Discount ASP.NET. We should not have any more issues in regards to the site with permissions. Again, a huge thank you to Discount ASP.NET.

Site Launch

Donn Felker — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 07:33:19 GMT

The site was launched August 12, 2008.

Redesign Completed August 23, 2008.