====== Speaker-Presenter Information and Resources ======

Information, resources, common questions and answers
**for those doing or prospectively doing talks/presentations at BALUG**

***Thank you for your interest.*** Please direct all correspondence to balug-speaker-coordinators@balug.org. Our primary people and a group of volunteers will respond.

If you will or may be giving a talk/presentation at BALUG,
**the following information will likely be rather to quite useful to you**.

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Once you're confirmed to give a talk/presentation at BALUG the following
are the first bits of information we'll need most immediately - or at
least as soon as feasible - from you.

You'll also want to familiarize yourself with the information on what
resources we do/don't have available and how, and typical meeting
timelines, to help optimize the talk/presentation experience.

Name and working title for talk/presentation (and optionally
affiliation)
Most immediately after you're confirmed to give a talk/presentation at
BALUG, we'll want ...

name and working title
Your name as you wish it to appear, and title, or "working title" for
the talk/presentation.
If there's some particular affiliation (e.g. company, organization,
institution, etc.) we should show you as affiliated with, please provide
that.

description/outline
Paragraphish outline or teaser for what the talk/presentation will
cover or likely cover (needn't box oneself in as to precisely what
will/won't be covered, but general outline or hints as to what will
or likely will be covered is generally good)

mini-bio
A line (name and title/affiliation) to shortish paragraph on
speaker(s)/presenter(s), background relevant to the topic/presentation,
and occasionally other (very) short interesting bit(s) (e.g. "and also
likes to jump out of perfectly good planes for fun").

We're hoping to have some improvements on this in future,
but as of 2014-10-21, we've had a change of venue, so at present with
our regular venue:
Projector - we don't have projector or screen or particularly good
surface/wall for projecting onto
Audio - we don't have a PA system
Networking? - may be possible to tether via cellular, but cellular
signal can be spotty.  There may be some Wi-Fi at the venue that we can
use - if you may need that, ask us in advance, and we'll see what we can
find out.
Power - AC power isn't conveniently available, but generally can be made
available.  If you'll want/need AC power, let us know, and we can
probably arrange that.
The present venue is restaurant - generally not all that crowded when
we're there, but we don't have our own separate room/area - typically
just a (large) table or two for us (up to around 10 people per table) -
possibly more tables if we have a larger group.  If we get sufficiently
large number of people (e.g. well over 20) we might be able to use
separate area of restaurant.
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===== Typical meeting timeline =====
(some times are approximate):
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6:30 P.M. meeting officially kicks off - we gather and are seated in the
          restaurant.  We might order appetizer(s) and/or soup.  We
          socialize/meet/greet, may do nametags.

7:00 P.M. We order dinner.  Folks should arrive before 7:00 P.M. if they
          wish to join us for dinner (we typically dine or mostly dine
          "family style", and may not be able to accommodate folks in
          that manner after 7:00 P.M.  Folks can still be later and
          order separately off menu, but that's often a bit more
          disruptive, and we may not have open seat(s) at the table(s)
          we're already sitting at - so we try to encourage everyone to
          show up not later than 7:00 P.M.).

8:00 P.M. We typically transition from social/informal/dining to
          talk/presentation around this time.

          We commonly do "announcements", and "brief community
          announcements" (folks can take up to a minute to announce
          stuff likely to be of relevance to BALUG) before and/or after
          the talk/presentation

8:45 P.M. - 9:15 P.M. talk/presentation typically concludes somewhere in
                      this timerange, and often/typically winds down to
                      Q&A (formally and/or informally) and/or more
                      general discussion.

                      if "announcements" and "brief community
                      announcements" haven't already been
                      done/concluded, we'll typically wrap that up.

                      if we have any door prize drawings and/or
                      giveaways, we'll typically do that

folks may continue to mill about and talk following completion of the
above

<= 9:30 P.M. we try to fully wrap up and leave the restaurant by 9:30
             P.M. (we are fairly often the last customers in the
             restaurant, and try to avoid inconveniencing the restaurant
             as much as feasible).

Following the above, and if/as announced and if there are interested
folks, some of us will occasionally gather after the meeting at a nearby
location (e.g. some brew pub or the like) for continued discussions,
etc.
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