[Rubyforchange-talk] Ideas for charity events

[Jeremy McAnally]

Hello everyone,
I was curious about whether or not they were planning a charity event
at RubyConf, and upon asking Chad told me they hadn't really planned
one yet but were open to new and interesting ideas.

I though I'd post here to get a discussion going about some of the
ideas I've had and see if anyone else has any excellent ideas.  Of
course, a workshop is a great idea but I'm sure there's a twist on it
that no one has tried yet...

One idea I had is a twist on the Ruby for Change idea, in that you
assemble teams of developers to do small projects for clients and then
donate the money to a charity.   Or, you could assemble people into
hack night groups at RubyConf or the Ruby Hoedown or whatever, and
over the course of the conf they hack together a marketable
product/website (e.g., ActiveReload's Warehouse) that will give its
proceeds to charity.

One idea I had and didn't get to implement at the Hoedown is a silent
auction of stuff like books, training, hosting, etc.  It could be
something as simple as "a copy of Beginning Ruby" to something like "a
pair programming session with Matz."  I've seen things similar to that
done that have yielded huge amounts of money.

Anyone else have any ideas?  I hope we can kick up some good ideas for
myself and other conference organizers to use.

Thanks a lot,
Jeremy

-- 
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