Registration

In order to get a count of attendees, please register!
http://pentaho2008mainz.eventbrite.com

Overview

Pentaho is sponsoring a meet up for its open source community in Mainz Germany. This is an informal gathering to give community members that have been working together online a chance to meet. The intent is to keep it community oriented and not Pentaho marketing driven.

The format will be similar to BarCamp - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp. Community members are invited give a presentation or facilitate a session related to using Pentaho technology to solve problems. In addition to community sessions, most of the Pentaho Architects will be there to show off their latest stuff. People should be free to break off into groups and work together.

The Pentaho Architects that will be attending are:
Matt Casters - Kettle
Julian Hyde - Mondrian
Thomas Morgner - JFreeReport
Doug Moran - BI Platform

This is intended to be a community event - for the community and by the community. We have been taking feedback via Pentaho forums, IRC and through comments in this wiki. If there is a topic that you want to talk about or present on, please ask for a speaking slot or discuss in the forums.

Forum: http://forums.pentaho.org/forumdisplay.php?f=255

The meet up will take place on June 13th and 14th. Pentaho will sponsor the meeting, lunch and tour on the 13th. Attendees will be responsible for activities the evening of the 13th and events on the 14th.

Thursday June 12th - evening: Who wants to join us before the event on Thursday evening for dinner/beer/wine... we will meet at 7pm at Proviant-Magazin, Schillerstraße 11 a, 55116 Mainz. There we have enough room to sit in or out depending on the weather. It is very central and in walking distance of the hotels.

Friday June 13th we have reserved a meeting room at the Sparkling Wine Cellar - Sektkellerei Kupferberg from 9:30am until 5:00pm. Lunch and refreshments will be provided by Pentaho. At 5:00 pm we have a guided tour into the historic cellars of this sparkling wine (Sekt) producer followed by a tasting session until about 6 pm. Pentaho will pay for the tour. Afterwards, attendees will be on their own.

http://www.kupferbergterrasse.de

After the tour, I hope Pentaho employees and community members will meet socially for dinner or drinks at 7:30pm at Proviant-Magazin, Schillerstraße 11 a, 55116 Mainz.

Saturday, June 14 there is a Rhine river cruise starting at 11:30am in Bingen and ending at 12:55pm in St. Goar. There is plenty of room for people to break up into groups for discussions, admire this beautiful region and drink "something". http://www.k-d.com/englisch/schiffstouren/rundfahrten.html see http://www.k-d.com/englisch/schiffstouren/fahrplan-rhein.html for the rates and timetable. We can take a local train from Mainz (10:30am) to Bingen (arrival 11:06am) or go by car - meeting point at Mainz Hauptbahnhof (Main-Station) at track 11 (RB 12766) [some minutes] befor 10:30am.

In St. Goar we will have lunch at Rheinfels Fortress: http://www.welterbe-mittelrheintal.de/index.php?id=105&L=3. After visiting the castle and/or St. Goar, we can take the train (leaves every hour at x:20) back to Mainz and be sad the event is over...

What kind of event?

As mentioned above, community discussions over the last couple of months have produced the following goals

Informal
Technically oriented
Not a Pentaho sales and marketing event
Alcohol available
Opportunity to show off stuff you have been working on.
Everyone participates
Minimal costs for attending. Pentaho will pay for the meeting room, equipment, wine cellar tour and lunch on the 13th.

How to get there

Sektkellerei Kupferberg (Racke)
Kupferbergterrasse 17-19
55116 Mainz, Germany, Phone +49 (0) 61 31 - 9 23-0
http://www.kupferbergterrasse.de/ANREISE/Anreise.html Google Maps

It's near by the Mainz central station (5-10 minutes walking distance up the "hill" or Taxi). A Taxi from Frankfurt Airport takes about 25 minutes and costs 50 to 60 Euro - local trains from Frankfurt Airport to Mainz central station take about 30 to 40 minutes.

We have a room for about 50 to 70 people, projector, WLAN, lunch, drinks...

Some Accommodation hints (no guarantees)

The closest hotels to the meet up:

Novotel (near to the event and central),
Hilton Mainz City (there are two Hiltons in Mainz, this is near to the event and central, the other one is direct on the Rhine river) for these hotels we get special rates with the booking code "pentaho" for a limited number of rooms to be booked until June, 6th (please call the hotel reservation line directly).

More moderate priced

Hotel Mainzer Hof (10 min. walking to event, central)
Contel (20 min. walking to event, central)
Ibis (30 min. walking to event, 10 min. to central)
more e.g. at booking.com or hrs.de
Youth hostel Mainz: http://www.jugendherberge.de/en/hostels/search/portrait/jh.jsp?IDJH=411 - all rooms booked out

Other cheap possibilities

couchsurfing.com (about 98 couches in Mainz)
hospitalityclub.org (about 700 in Mainz)

Going arround

There is a collaborative Google Map available athttp://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=105046201696261906078.00044f677cc80847e1390&z=17. feel free to add addresses, notes and paths as you wish. This will help people get arround in Mainz.

Who's Going?

Just about all other decisions depend on having a good idea whether there will be 10 people or 100 people attending. Respond to the forum if you are sure you can be there and let us know if you can volunteer to help, or want to do something like a demo or discussion or puppet show etc.

Register at: http://pentaho2008mainz.eventbrite.com

The "Who's Going?" forum thread