From: Paul Guyot (pguyot_at_kallisys.net)
Date: Thu Jul 22 2004 - 00:23:01 PDT
Hi all,
Here are a couple of news about the Worldwide Newton Association and
the Worldwide Newton Conference.
First, I did write a page about the venue of the conference. It can
be found here:
http://wwnc.newtontalk.net/venue/
As Adam mentioned it here, he will come and deliver a speech on his
personal history of Newton development and protest. I'm really happy
to be able to meet Adam at the conference, with other speakers as
well (Larry, Simon, Robert, Frank, Eckhart, Daniel, Ronnie &
Nicolas). The conference is the place to be on this weekend of
September 4th and 5th. Not only is it the Newton event of 2004, but
we didn't hear that much about the Newton on online news websites for
years and I'm very proud of what Nicolas does to spread the news.
The other big news is that John Sculley accepted to become the
honorary president of the Worldwide Newton Association. He's joining
Larry Yaeger and Walter Smith who were the first two honorary
members. I am really glad he accepted and he seemed genuinely
interested in what we do when we discussed it on the phone.
Unfortunately, he could not come to the conference because of family
obligations.
One of the goal by founding the association was to reach people who
are not on NewtonTalk. We estimate that there are 10-20K users and
these users often ignore everything we can do with a Newton today.
This is why I am proud to say that several members of the association
do not seem to be on NewtonTalk. Of course, this should not prevent
NewtonTalkers from subscribing to the association.
Indeed, the association is a democratic structure (like most
associations under this very particular French law). Members will
vote at the general meeting on September 5th to elect the members of
the board. You can find someone to cast your vote if you cannot come
to the conference and you can be candidate to the board even if you
do not come. The board has up to 20 members and it should meet at
least every 3 months. We added a special article to the regular
statutory rules of such structures so these meetings can be done over
the Internet unless more than a quarter of the members of the board
refuse it (general annual meetings cannot be made over the Internet
by law).
Additionally, subscribing to the association strengthens its power.
It is very different if we come to some partner and tell them we have
50 members or that we have 5000 members. We are still seeking
partnerships to be able to press 5000 or 10000 DVDs of the
conference. Ideas are welcome.
Another goal of the association is to organize events like the
conference and to finance Newton-related projects. There is a high
probability that another conference will take place next year, and
while Nicolas is ready to organize it in Paris again, we both agree
that the best would be for it to take place in North America. It
means that several organizers living there have to take over the
organization of the conference. It also means we have to make this as
easy as possible by organizing the first conference (which is of
course harder than the next ones) as smoothly as possible.
Due to stupid but nevertheless essential issues, we will have to book
the lunches and other attendance-related business two weeks before
the conference at the very latest. Hence every registration after
August, 15th will probably cost us more than right now.
We are considering the possibility to raise the inscription fee after
that date. Please, if you are willing to come, register beforehand.
Thanks.
Paul
-- Philosophie de baignoire - consultations sur rendez-vous. NPDS/NewtonOS: http://newton.kallisys.net:8080/ Apache/FreeBSD: http://www.kallisys.com/ Worldwide Newton Conference 2004: http://wwnc.newtontalk.net/ -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
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