On Saturday, November 7, 2009, we held the third annual Fairfield / Westchester Code Camp, and I have so many people to thank again this year…
Attendees
You helped make this a great day of learning and connecting with our peers. Although I was only able to witness a few minutes of the actual sessions, I could feel the energy and education happening all around.
Just some of the many attendees
Q & A in Evan Hutnick’s Silverlight presentation
Speakers
I want to especially thank you (including our very own Leo Junquera, who had to fill in at the last minute for one of the speakers who fell ill). Without all of you, there are no code camps. Your contribution to the community is extremely generous, and I know that everyone who attended and everyone who helped organize it deeply appreciate it. Thanks so much, Peter Laudati, David Douglass, Milan Negovan, Edwin Ames, Sunil Kadimdiwan, Dmitry Lyalin, Shrenik Jhaveri, Ivan Krivyakov, Kevin S. Goff, Evan Hutnick, Rick Minerich, Supriyo “SB” Chatterjee, John Baird, Chris Rolon, John Zablocki, Doug Finke, and Ben Poserow.
Peter Laudati and Milan Negovan having the standard geek lunch
Ned Ames, Leo Junquera, Mark Freedman and Milan Negovan
Facilitators
I want to thank my core team, including my wonderful wife and best friend, Lorri, whose help has been tremendous for these code camps. I feel embarrassed that Leo had to be the one to thank her when I was up at the podium thanking everyone else 😉
Of course I have to thank my partners, Leo and James Simon for all their help, as well as Leo’s wife, Allison, who provided great help at the registration booth and helping to reach out to vendors for their support.
Allison Junquera, Leo Junquera and Ned Ames
I also want to thank Sean (I know I must be spelling your name wrong — is it Shaun or Shawn?) who helped with the facilities, and has been a great help for all the group meetings throughout the year.
A short break for S.
As always, the support from Peter Laudati and Microsoft has continued to play a huge role for our user groups and code camps since day one. And I want to thank our “room monitors”, Mark Torrone, Mariam Diakité, and Louis Hendricks, for making sure things were going smoothly at each session so that the rest of us could focus on everything else.
Milan Negovan, Mark Torrone and Rick Minerich – a well deserved break
I also want to thank my friend, David Beaulieu, our audio technician, for recording the sessions at this year’s show. He was running around even more than I was!
David Beaulieu and Mark Freedman
Contributors
I want to give a special thanks to Telerik (Emily and Evan), who helped us get the large Schreiber Reading Room this year! I also want to thank our other contributors, such as CITI, UConn, webloyalty.com, PrimalBits Software, JetBrains, Xceed, and CozyRoc. And things would have been a lot more difficult if it weren’t for the continued support of Eventbrite, Kentico, and Applied Innovations.
Evan Hutnick showing off the latest from Telerik (Mariam Diakité in BG)
We again had 24 sessions, plus a special lunchtime presentation by Telerik. 215 people signed up before we had to shut down the registration again, and we still had some walk-ins!
Peter Laudati engrossing the audience
Rick Minerich hitting the right note with F# (bad pun, I know 😉 )
Running these is so exhausting, but so worth it! This year local security opened the doors for us to prepare later than we had hoped, so it was an extra mad rush. Next year we’re looking to shoot for 6:00 AM instead of 7:00 AM.
We had the inevitable last minute room changes
It’s great how people organize themselves at events like this. We had a few minor technical issues, room coordination and sign posting challenges, but the bulk of it is run by the presenters and attendees. We just help keep things going as smoothly as possible.
It’s raffle and thank you time
I expect to have presentation material and code samples from the speakers to post shortly on our main Code Camp site, along with audio from several of the sessions this time around!
We look forward to continue holding these annually. Every year we learn even more lessons about what to do, and what not to do. The evaluation feedback form that you filled out is extremely important in this regard. I’ll be updating my series of articles soon to reflect what we’ve learned.
I want to individually thank everyone involved in running this event, in the order of appearance, more or less. If I missed anyone’s name, I’m truly sorry:
People:
Lorri Freedman
Emily Parker
Leo Junquera
Sean (Shawn? Shaun?) — Sorry — I should have gotten your full name, spelled correctly. Please forgive me.
Peter Laudati
David Beaulieu
Christine Beaulieu
James Simon
Allison Junquera
Mark Torrone
Mariam Diakité
Louis Hendricks
David Douglass
Milan Negovan
Edwin Ames
Sunil Kadimdiwan
Dmitry Lyalin
Shrenik Jhaveri
Ivan Krivyakov
Kevin S. Goff
Evan Hutnick
Rick Minerich
Supriyo “SB” Chatterjee
John Baird
Chris Rolon
John Zablocki
Doug Finke
Ben Poserow
Silvia Goncalves
Contributors:
Connecticut Information Technology Institute (CITI)
University of Connecticut (UCONN)
webloyalty.com
Microsoft
Telerik
PrimalBits Software
JetBrains
Xceed
CozyRoc
Eventbrite
Kentico
Applied Innovations
