[ale] 2015 InstallFest Dump

[DJ-Pfulio]

I'm asking for feedback about the recent Installfest.

1) What did we do well?

2) What did we do poorly?

3) What made you want to volunteer?

4) If you DID sign up for an install, why didn't you show up?

5) If you DID NOT sign up for an install and would have liked to - why
not?  Time, location, location hidden to non-members, too much
"registration data" demanded?  Why?

Please be honest. That's the only way we can make these things better
next time.

Please reply off-list, if you prefer. On-list could get the ball
rolling, however.

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For example, here's my list looking from the inside.

* As usual, volunteer support was great! Overwhelming. Wish we would
have had more installs.
* The swag this year was better than at any time over the last 5 yrs -
thanks to Chuck Payne!  We had t-shirts, DVDs, stickers, pens available.
* Mark did some great advertising, but if he had more lead-time, I'm
certain more people would have gotten the message. Community newspapers
probably need more than 10 days notice about an event.
* The networking was unknown when we arrived due to my failure to get
with the owner. If we knew a wired connection would be allowed, the core
group could have concentrated on non-wifi-bridge stuff. I spent about 5
hours just on that alone.
* Perhaps a bfast for the core volunteers would get us close to the
location, earlier? I was a little late and live 10 min away with ZERO
traffic.
* A few core volunteer organizational meetings 1, 2 months prior would
have helped. The google-docs spreadsheet didn't work well, for some
reason I do not understand.
* My web server with information and ISOs wasn't working due to a
keyboard issue. It didn't seem to be important on the day, but has been
very important at prior installfests to make tools and ISOs available.
* No Information / Presentats were displayed - a few beginner-level
presentations beginning after the first installations completed would be
good. There was a TV which could have been used - always bring an HDMI
cable to these things. Always. Same for PS2-to-USB adapter.
* No "after party" - after a long day, do we want to share a meal?
* Next year, we'll have separate signup events for volunteers AND
installees.
* I missed the donuts and normal coffee, but the sandwich and smoothie
was tasty.

It should be understood that we didn't have a viable location until 2
weeks before the installfest. 3 other locations fell through.

My backup plan was to use Harry's Pizza for installations every Sunday
meeting in Sept and limit it to 2-4 people per week.



BTW - my 'n' key is still flaky - hard and fast rule needed to get that key.

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On Oct 3rd, there is a MakerFair - do we want to support that in any
way?  It is just a week away!