Proposal for a Plasma meeting location (Tokamak III?)

[Mario Fux]

Good morning all

I'd like to make you a proposal and offer for the location of a possible next 
Plasma meeting (Tokamak III?).

And here is the overview to this mail:
- Abstract
- Offer in detail:
-- Exact location
-- Sleeping
-- Time & date
- Something about me
- And at the end an excuse for my bad english...

Abstract:
---------
I'd like you to offer my family's vacation home for a next Plasma meeting. 
It's located in the middle of the Alpes (Switzerland) in a very inspiring 
area. The house offers room for 10-20 people working there and 10-12 people 
sleeping there (there will be other possibilities to sleep nearby). The best 
date for me would be between middle of January and the middle of February 
2009 which is around or short after the release of KDE 4.2 [1].

Offer in detail:
----------------
- What's included?
------------------
-- Working rooms
-- Electricity
-- A decent internet connection
-- Other infrastructure: e.g. whiteboard, cables, network, etc.
-- Heating (it'll be winter then ;-)
-- Sleeping possibilities inhouse for most of the people and I'll try to get 
more (from my aunt) for the rest (there will be a solution!)
-- I'll try to find sponsors for the food and will see that you won't go 
hungry to bed.
-- An inspiring and wonderful winter landscape...

- Exact location?
-----------------
The house is located in Randa [2] a small village in the middle of the Alpes 
in Switzerland. Randa is located near to a famous winter sport destination 
called Zermatt [3]. The village is reachable by public traffic and cars. If 
you come by plane you can chose from three different airports (Zurich, 
Switzerland; Geneva, Switzerland and Malpensa, Italy) which are all approx. 
three hours away from Randa. Randa and Zermatt are located in the Canton 
Valais [3] in the south of Switzerland near the Italian border. In Valais 
people speak French and German.

- Sleeping conditions?
----------------------
I can offer warm rooms but we won't have enough beds for all the people in the 
house. What I can and will offer are the few beds, mattresses, futons and 
other possibilites to sleep. For the people which have no room in the house 
to sleep I'll try to get one or two appartements 1 minute away. But I'm not 
yet sure about the financial conditions of these appartements. I'll do my 
best ;-).

- Time & date?
--------------
The personal reason to chose the interval from middle of January to the middle 
of February 2009 are quite simple: I've exams till the middle of January and 
the university begins again at the middle of February. But I think the timing 
isn't that bad as you see in the release schedule of KDE [1].

Something about me:
-------------------
I use free software since 10 years and try to promote it where and when I can. 
Since 5 years I study education, computer sciences and computational 
linguistics at the university of Zurich, Switzerland. But in 1999 I already 
finished a schooling as a primary school teacher.
My experience with KDE is mainly as a user. Since almost 4 years the primary 
school in Ried-Brig (the village in Valais where I grew up) uses KDE as their 
main desktop. Last year in Glasgow at the Akademy I presented their usage of 
free software. I lurk since years on more than 10 KDE mailinglists and hope 
to finally start to contribute to KDE codewise this next term...

So what do you think? Are you interested? Would this be something for a Plasma 
meeting?

I'll be AFK till the weekend and will answer possible questions from then on. 
If you're interested I'll offer even more information and details and 
photos...

Greets from Switzerland and happy hacking
Mario

[1] http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.2_Release_Schedule
[2] http://www.randa.ch (only German)
[3] http://www.zermatt.ch
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valais