Southwest Fox 2013: Super-saver deadline approaches

Thanks to those of you who responded promptly to our message about the future of Southwest Fox. Registration has picked up, but we still need to hear from more of you before the Super-saver deadline.

June 30th is less than a week away and we thought we would pass along a reminder just in case you forgot to type it into your task list, or put a yellow sticky note on your monitor. We still need people to register to make the conferences happen.

The conference takes place October 17-20, 2013 in Gilbert, Arizona and we really hope you can be there. We would hate to see you miss out on the $125 discount and the free pre-conference session. The pre-conference sessions are quite popular this year.

Head over to the registration Web site today: http://geekgatherings.com/Registration. As promised, we are not cashing checks or processing credit cards for new registrations until the middle of July.

Already registered? Thanks. Can you help us remind your fellow developers who have been procrastinating about the looming deadline?

You can save Southwest Fox!

Putting on a conference is a risky endeavor. Conference centers require a guaranteed minimum income to block the dates of a conference; for a conference like Southwest Fox and Southwest Xbase++, that minimum is in the tens of thousands of dollars.

As of today, we have 14 people registered for Southwest Fox and Southwest Xbase++ 2013. That’s about half the number of people who were registered at this time last year, and last year’s number took a big leap of faith on our part to carry on. See, our breakeven point is about 75 people, and according to our contract with the hotel, we have until July 2 to cancel or we’re on the hook for our guaranteed minimum whether there’s a conference or not.

Southwest Fox is one of the highlights of the year for Rick, Tamar and me. A ton of planning and work goes into organizing it, but we are happy to do it because we feel it’s an important way to keep our community going. We’re realistic enough to know that it won’t go on forever and each year could be the last. So, was 2012 the last year? You can help us make that decision. If you were thinking about going this year, vote to continue the conference by registering now. If you know others thinking of attending, share this message with them.

If we do end up cancelling, everyone who registered will get their money back in full, so you can’t lose out. (Just don’t make your flight reservation right way.)

The FoxShow #77 features an interview with Rick, Tamar, and I discussing this and other SWFox-related issues, so be sure to check it out. Andrew MacNeill also has a blog post about this.

2013 Ceil Silver Ambassador Announced

Geek Gatherings is pleased to announce that the 2013 Ceil Silver Ambassador is Luis Maria Guayan. Luis is a well-known member of the Spanish FoxPro community, is one of the founders of PortalFox, is the project manager of the FoxBarcode VFPX project, and was a long-time MVP.

The Ceil Silver Ambassador Fund raises money from the VFP community to bring a developer to the Southwest Fox conference as an ambassador for the developers in his or her country. This gives the recipient the opportunity to meet and share experiences with developers attending Southwest Fox and gives other attendees the opportunity to learn about VFP development in the recipient's country.

The Fund is named in memory of Ceil Silver, a long-time member of the Visual FoxPro community, who passed away in January, 2009. Ceil served as Editor of FoxPro Advisor's Tips and Tricks column for many years and was the founder of the Westchester County FoxPro chapter of PADD, the Professional Association of Database Developers. She was also a contributing author to Special Edition Using Visual FoxPro 6. Ceil understood the value of attending professional conferences, and continued to attend them until her failing health prevented it.

2013 FoxPro Lifetime Achievement Award Nominations

The FoxPro Lifetime Achievement Award honors those individuals who have contributed a great deal to the FoxPro community over the years. See http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?Wiki~FoxProCommunityLifetimeAchievementAward~VFP for previous award recipients. These recipients wish to continue the award and have created a committee to select a recipient for 2013. The committee consists of all 14 living previous recipients, Alan Griver (yag), and Sergey Berezniker representing the FoxPro community. To submit your nominations for the 2013 recipients, please email me (dhennig@stonefield.com) by July 31, 2013.