HomeCamp 3 and 4. #evilplans.

Hey Guys

I just wanted to touch base and let you know some plans I have, and to
make sure they won’t upset the community, which is of course the most
important HomeCamp asset.

I believe I mentioned to the group before that I think we can
professionalise HomeCamp – indeed it will be hard to sustain it
otherwise. Camps 1 and 2 were very time consuming for Chris and me to
organise. With Chris now employed by Current Cost, running events will
be even harder.

Clearly the community has a mind and a spirit of its own – mike the
bee stands out as a stalwart for his work on the podcasts and so on.

So here is the plan. I have spoken to Tinkerit about a partnership.
Georgina Voss is really great at all the admin and operations stuff I
am notably crap at. The idea is we will look to run HomeCamp3 in the
Autumn with a v similar format to the first two- with sponsorship
being a matter of beer and pizza. Aim for 100 people again.

But then in the Spring we’ll run the first “professional” HomeCamp –
aiming for 250 delegates, with significant sponsorship.

All things being equal that will be the basis for an ongoing event
series (which may also syndicate in the US), which will remain free to
you, will be more high profile, will include more policy work (such as
for example focusing on inclusiveness and smarter homes- how can we
help gran and grandad to run energy efficient homes and understand
what utilities are telling them?), more partners- folks such as Arqiva
and Greenwave reality, MS and GE, with any luck.

My proposal then it to keep it free for you all, make companies pay,
and hopefully foster and grow the HomeCamp community as we see more
and more lower power homes coming on stream.

Obviously there may be opportunities to share some of the proceeds –
thus for example if Mike The Bee is the ongoing podcast king, he
should get a bung.

Would love your thoughts and ideas. Perhaps a beer meetup soon to
discuss?