The Community Launch Event is coming up in mid-February (reg details soon). I had planned to present on some aspects of the 2007 Office System since this is of direct interest to me. However, due to illness in the family, I am now unable to devote the time to do that justice. So I am hoping that some kind individual will step up to help me out by taking over from me. My sincere apologies for the rather short notice. I will have to square it with the MSFT Community Launch Team but hopefully they will understand. If you are willing to help me out, at the same time get some valuable free training via the Community Launch on-line training and get some useful experience with public speaking to a "friendly" audience, please reply to this email giving some brief relevant background and why you would like to do it.
I won't be invisible. I still plan to be involved with the whole presentation team and in helping to organize the event. It is very important that we make this a successful event. There is a lot of potential kudos associated with these Community Launch events. I would love to see a turnout of at least 150. If we can make that target then there may be some direct benefits for VANTUG. I realize that not everybody will be interested in all aspects of all topics (Vista, 2007 Office System, Exchange 2007 and .NET Framework 3.0). However, in the interest of building and strengthening the community I hope that you will support our efforts by attending and encourage each and every speaker. These people have volunteered to present to you, their peers. We would also like to see the maximum audience participation to add the most value for everyone.
Although the presentation content will be largely left to the individual presenters, since this is intended to be a "community" event in all senses I would like to invite you to email me with specific areas of interest for any and all of the products. We will try and incorporate the most popular topics into the presentations.
My thanks in advance to all who are willing to try and bail me out of a rather difficult personal situation.
Cheers
Graham Jones
President, VANTUG