The Big EveNt has a new location for 2012

The event formerly know as WMNUG's The Big EveNt has a new home for 2012.  We'll be at Cornerstone University's Bernice Hanson Athletic Center.  It's close to I-96 and right off of Beltline.  Across the street from the Meijer Gardens, there are hotels nearby as well as the entire Celebration Cinema North complex.

We're happy to have found a new home for the event (even though we're now paying for space) and are working on a million details.  A new 501(c)3 is needed, along with a new charter as we pull the event from the rubble of WMNUG and make it stand on it's own as an IT event for all with a broader focus and more user group involvement.

The dates will be in the first week of June, we just need to pick the days and come up with deposit money somehow.

It's soul remains the same - a volunteer-driven communty event for everyone in IT.  The goals are to continue being able to keep the event free for attendees and spread the cost among our wonderful and generous sponsors.  The more sponsors the lower the cost for all, so if you've got a good contact with a company you'd like to see there please let me know!

A formal board and titles haven't been determined yet, but the core group from the previous events remain, and we're adding more folks on as people volunteer to help out.  Nice reprieve for me! 

So stop by every so often to look for updates on the event.  We're skipping this year (again) so that we have enough time to plan a great event - and yes - it does take about a year to pull something like this off.

Novell's acquisition won't affect the event, they'll still be involved, but their new "siblings" may be along for the ride as well.  We couldn't do it without Novell or GWAVA or Dell or any of the other sponsors that have helped us move this forward.

The Big EveNt - back in 2012

Chad, Rusty and I had a very nice lunch yesterday - thanks for picking up the tab Chad! - and we're off and planning for 2012.  We could use some more help though, so anyone interested in helping out please shoot me an email. 

It will still be a user-lead event, but it won't be a strictly WMNUG event any longer.  We want all of the Linux, Adobe, Microsoft, VMWare, Novell, SharePoint, HDI, ITIL, PMI, and whomever I'm forgetting user groups in town involved.  We want this to be a truly, everything and anything IT related event.

Any ideas or suggestions of what you'd like to see are most welcome as always.  And yes, our goal is to keep it free or as cheap as possible to our attendees.

I'll be posting meeting dates here until we decide if we all want to maintain a blog just for The Big EveNt or if we'll put in some group space like a Google Site or mooch some Vibe space from Novell.

Stay tuned!

And for those that are curious...nope I don't have a new job yet, but I've got some good interviews under my belt so I'm hopeful that I'll land something soon!

The Big EveNt - may yet be revived

My current employer won't be needing me any more, which also means they also won't be able to limit my involvement in The Big EveNt any more.  I've mentioned this to a few folks and it looks like I may actually have some much needed planning help with pulling off such an event.

If you're at all interested in bringing back The Big EveNt to West Michigan, please let me know.  We're talking about a possible 2012 event, one that is broader than just Novell (which it has been moving towards this entire time), and we'd love some suggestions as to who to involve.  More importantly, we could use more volunteers!