[Updates: 2016-01-07]
I’m just bumping this thread instead of starting a new one to keep things tidy.
We are only a few months out now from LGM, so we need to start organizing things… 
Attendance/Lodgings
Now is the time to let me know if you plan on attending LGM, and if so if you would consider sharing a flat with all of us!
I think if we can get something that will accommodate many of us, it will:
- be fun, and
- help keep costs down.
I’ve been looking around the venue (see below) and assuming around 6 folks at the moment.
I’m also looking for Wednesday, April 13th – Monday, April 18th. These dates are flexible, but they cover the duration of our meetup on Thursday through the end of LGM.
This is what my search showed on: Booking.com or AirBnB. (I’m open to further suggestions on searching)
Prices seem to start around roughly $1600 - $2600 (~ $53 - $86 per person, per night).
Pledgie
I am going to launch the Pledgie campaign today probably. I’ll post a link when it’s live. If you get a moment, re-tweeting/posting/blogging/etc will help!
Pre-LGM Pixls meeting
I’ve been in touch with the local organizer and we have a facility at Furtherfield all to ourselves on Thursday, April 14th. The facility we’ll have available is the Commons:
View Larger Map http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=51.56577&mlon=-0.10492#map=18/51.56577/-0.10492
(above) Location of the Furtherfield Commons where the pixls meetup will be before LGM.
Or the Google Maps version:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zYKepeQNftPo.koxL6CFw1nPk&usp=sharing
(above) The red marker is the venue for LGM (Westminster School of Media Arts and Design, University of Westminster), and the checker flag is the location of Furtherfield Commons for our meetup on Thursday.
It appears we will have access from 10AM – 6PM (with an 0930 setup time).
From Lara (the local organizer):
The space has a great big desk, chairs and benches that can sit about 20
people, projector, kitchen, a good wifi and there’s (Phil will tell you
more) great outdoors for your photographic expeditions
Activities
If you think you’d like to lead an activity and teach/mentor/lead any activities this day, please let me know!
I am personally planning on booking a model to shoot around the park this day and for others to photograph with me.
I can also do a photowalk around the park for a bit in either the morning or afternoon, but it would be fun to have someone else lead one for a change if possible!
I’ve also offered to shoot the spaces for the Furtherfield folks (they have the Commons and a Gallery that they would love some photos of, including some headshots of themselves). If someone wants to help with this that would be awesome also!
We are absolutely open to entertain any ideas for the day, such as,
- Photowalk
- Workshop
- Presentation
- More?
Please just let me know if you’d like to lead one of these ideas!
Submit a Presentation
Just an FYI, the submission date closes on January 10th for content to LGM proper.
I’ve submitted a 20min. presentation where I’ll talk about the community in general, but if you’d like to give your own presentation on things you’re working on - better hurry up! 
(I know that @Carmelo_DrRaw was thinking about presenting…).
Ok, I think the time is here to start planning things for Libre Graphics Meeting 2016 in London this upcoming spring!
The meeting will be April 15-18, 2016 at Westminster School of Media Arts and Design, University of Westminster, London, UK.
We previously talked about a possible show during LGM.
Attendance
If you think you might be able to make it out to the meeting (or know for sure), can you let me know (either here, by email, or private message). I’m just trying to gauge interest in us meeting the day before LGM and accommodations (below).
Funding
I was thinking that I’ll launch a Pledgie campaign soon to try and raise some funds to help us get some folks out to the meeting. Does anyone have any other ideas for possible funding or sponsorship to help members make it out to the meeting?
LGM itself has been able to help reimburse the travel portion of expenses for people to travel to the meeting, so we should consider leveraging this in addition to what we can raise ourselves. Reimbursement – Libre Graphics Meeting 2016
I was thinking that the biggest thing we’d need to address is accommodations. In particular, it might make more sense (and be more fun) to possibly rent an entire flat for everyone to share? Are there any projects that are interested in doing this as well? (The GIMP team does this and it works out well for them).
Does this sound like a good idea? (We could probably also shop for and fix meals in the flat as well).
I’m going to be asking everyone to help spread the word as far as possible when we launch the Pledgie campaign to maximize visibility and hopefully make it as successful as possible.
Pre-LGM PIXLS Meeting
In a previous thread I had mentioned that I had heard back from Lara (the local organizer) about space to use for us (PIXLS) to meet:
Hi Pat!
Many thanks for the email - sounds like a great project.
Let’s start thinking about how and where to organise this - for the pre-LGM EVENTS I WAS THINKING ABOUT USING Furtehrfiled Commons a great space in north London (http://www.furtherfield.org/gallery/about).
Let me know what you think and I can talk to them and put us all in touch to get things going smile
Best wishes,
Lara
I will be getting back in touch with her about the facilities and what we might be able to do there. I’d like to hear from folks about workshops/photowalks/presentations that would primarily be of interest to our community (and might be boring to a more general audience at LGM itself).
Conduct a Workshop/Photowalk/Etc…
Please, reply here and let me know what you would like to do! This will help me plan facilities, timing, etc. This is our first year trying this, so let’s entertain all ideas:
- Photowalk
- Workshop
- Presentation
- More?
Once we know some of what we’d like to do, we can schedule activities around the facilities and time.
For instance, I think I’d like to try to hold a single-light portrait workshop that I think would be fun. Maybe something with natural light as well could be neat?
LGM Meeting
Of course, if someone has a presentation to give at LGM - even better! I will propose a presentation about our community in general, and all the neat things everyone has been up to this past year. If someone wants to give another presentation that would be awesome. If anyone would like a hand for their presentation, let’s all try to help out as well as we can! (I personally will do whatever I can to help any community member - photos? language? layout? slide deck? I’m available to help - just ask!).
LGM Photo Services
For those of us that can/do make it out to the meeting, please consider grabbing images that we can get to the organization to use! It’s a good opportunity to represent us as photographers in general!
Speaking of which, I think it might be nice to offer our services to other attendees and projects. In 2014 @houz brought along a simple lighting kit that let us take a bunch of headshots and portraits (ty @houz), and I think that extending that offer to the attendees again this year would be a nice thing to do. Anyone game to do portraits/headshots?
##TL;DR
- Let me know if you might make it to LGM
- I’ll start a Pledgie soon - any other thoughts/ideas on funding/sponsorship?
- Should we see about renting a flat for the meeting for everyone? (see 1.)
- Submit an idea for our (pixls) meeting - workshop/photowalk/etc.
- Submit a talk at LGM proper
- Shooting for other attendees (headshots/portraits)
