We are staying at voco Kirkton Park in Hunter Valley. It will take a little over two hours’ drive from Central Station according to Google Maps, but can take three hours if you are catching the bus (coach) we have booked.
The bus will be departing from Central Station on Wednesday 8 March at 9:00am. Please meet in the Grand Concourse area of the station by 8:30am.
We are scheduled to be back at Central Station by 5:00pm on Friday 10 March. We will leave Hunter Valley at 2:00pm, allowing enough time for traffic.
We will send out a survey in early 2023 once the holiday period has subsided. If you are planning to make your own way there, please let us know using that survey as well.
You should already be having conversations with your manager about flights to Sydney. The cost of these flights will be covered by the company. If you are not travelling by plane, you may need to discuss travel reimbursement with your manager.
Engineering, Operations, Shared Services, Product, and Jason. 😜
Yes, you are expected to work as normal, unless you have some other leave planned.
We will have an activity planned on Wednesday afternoon, with potentially a little bit of free time before dinner. Thursday is scheduled to be a “conference day” with talks but regular breaks, and will run from roughly 10:00 to 4:00 (time frame is approximate and subject to change – we don’t want you to burn out). Free time is also scheduled for Friday morning before departure.
We will send out a survey to collect interest, but in the meantime please speak to your manager and they will let us know you’re keen!
We are welcoming shorter talks of 10–20 minutes, rather than previous years of 40 minutes or a couple hours of workshops. This will give more people the opportunity to speak. We area also considering a more spontaneous lightning talks session that requires no preparation.
Unlike 2020, talks will be single stream – there will only be one talk happening at a time – so you don’t need to “choose” which talk you want to go to.
We encourage everyone to come to Devcamp if they can, so that they can listen to talks as they happen. In previous years we recorded talks and had presentation slides stitched into the recording. After reviewing previous years of Devcamp, we found that people got more value out of being present at Devcamp and not from the recordings. So in 2023 we are going with something more basic, inviting speakers to share their slides and having a single camera recording the speaker.
While we already have an organising team, there is room for additional help during the three days of Devcamp, such as helping gather everyone for the bus, MC-ing, and in general helping us keep things in order. Please reach out to someone from the organising team if you are interested.
Take a break from the sessions or the activities if you need to. You can go for a walk, explore, sit in a quiet corner, go to your room, take a nap, etc. We encourage you to put your mental health first.
You should bring clothes; pyjamas; toothbrush; toothpaste; your laptop, charger(s), and adapters. You will have enough free time to explore, walk, or run – so bring swimming gear and activewear if you feel so inclined. We encourage you to bring board games or other activities that you can use during downtime.
If you want. 😉
Send a message to the #devcamp Slack channel and we can add it to this FAQ. If it is a private matter, message one of us: Staples, Chris W, Shenny, Henry, Rashmita, or Georgie.