1 Most conferences are difficult to organise because it entails lining up attendees and speakers to all be at the same place and time. 2 once venue and programme is set, the other thing would be to justify to management that you are worthy to attend such conferences and if you are lucky get the fee, accomodation and travel paid. 3 There used to be a technical and a management part running in parallel at the Uniforum conference with. In the last few ones there has been no such distinction. I wonder if it is worth while asking if we (nznog) can organise the technical bit. This leaves the organisation of the conference to them and the work is only in organising the presenters etc. (just a suggestion to reduce the organisation workload) 4 what content do you need to see in the programme before you think it is worth your time attending? Perhaps it might be worthwhile looking at the presentation topics of the NANOG meeting or APRICOT and have each of you list what it is you would have attended. I remember one of the Uniforum sessions in Rotorua where someone expected a lot of nznog types to attend his session and not many turned up and so he had to change his talk to a more general one on IP Net (or something like that). 5. Some of you feel that a lot more gets done at the pub. If it is the case, let's not have a conference. Organise regular drinkies or dinners (eg once every 3 or 6 months) and have one or two speakers give a presentation before the drinkies start. Perhaps even say the presenters have to buy a round of drinks. 6. I also feel that some of you won't be too happy sitting listening to presentations all day and perhaps it would be more realistic to have more sessions with hands on things to do at some computer/router/machine and fewer presentations. just my 2c worth Lin The - To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog