Hello, and welcome to the fifth bulletin about the YAPC::Europe::2006 Perl Conference from the Birmingham 2006 Organisers.

Accommodation

We have been looking at a few hotels for you folks and suggest the following two are probably the most appropriate. There should be enough hotel rooms in the hotels near the venue to accommodate everyone, but we've included a few extra if you wanted to check them out.

• Jury's Inn

Jury's Inn is on Broad Street (almost next door to the conference venue) has ideal facilities and is centrally located, being only a short walking (or stumbling) distance of pubs, bars, restaurants, clubs, shops, and many other great places the city has to offer visitors. We have negotiated some room reservations with the hotel, at some reasonable prices. All rooms have a double bed in each room, many having two. If you plan to share, please indicate this when booking (select 2 double beds option). We have 80 rooms reserved until the end of July, though these are on a first come first served basis. Should these rooms be sold out before the end of July, you may still be able to acquire rooms, however after this date we cannot guarantee you will be able to use the conference rate.

The cost of one person in a room is £79, including breakfast. If two people wish to share, the price rises to £87 to include breakfast for the second person. For 3 or 4 people sharing, you will have to enquire further.

To book a room, you can call the hotel direct on +44(0)121 626 0626, and quote the conference rate 'perl290806', to recieve the reduced room rate. You can also apply online, by entering details into the "Book A Room" form. Please select "Special Offer" from Rate Preferences drop down and enter the code 'perl290806'. If you have any difficulties with the online form, we recommend phoning the hotel direct.

All rooms have free wired broadband access, while some have wifi access. Wifi is available throughout the lobby, bar and dining area too. Please note that wifi access incurs a charge, although there is stay rate rather than a day rate that you can buy. Ask the hotel for details.

We plan to use the hotel lobby and bar as the end of the night haunt once pubs and bars close.

• nite nite

For those with a low-cost budget, nitenite is a hotel which should be suitable. The hotel has only recently opened, catering for the budget business market, and is also within stumbling distance of the venue. Wifi is available in every room, although incurs a charge. Rooms are all double rooms and price per room is £40 if you take advantage of their non-refundable offer. We haven't reserved any rooms, and as the hotel only has 99 rooms, if this is your preferred option you may want to book soon.

• Premier Travel Inn (Canal Side)
• Premier Travel Inn (Brindley Place)
• Novotel
• City Inn
• Malmaison
• Ramada Hotel

The above hotels are all close to the venue, but can vary drastically in price. Unfortunately we cannot verify or guarantee the quality of many of the hotels, so we recommend you read reviews of others who have stayed there to get an idea of what to expect. Style and quality of hotels can vary considerably, but it is worth remembering that AA approved *** (3 star) or better is recommended.

Introducing The Team

Following on from bulletin 3.0, we'd like to introduce you to know more of the organisers before you get here.

Our secretary is Steve Pitchford, who has been looking after alot of the behind the scenes correspondance, doing a lot of the dotting and crossing. This conference is thanks to Steve, as it was his original suggestion during the Paris conference that got us to where we are now. Steve was also the director, script writer and cameraman for the "Birmingham Job" movie, which formed part of our bid. If you missed it, we might show it again ... if you ask nicely :) Steve has been attending the YAPC::Europe conferences since Paris in 2003, and has been an active member of Birmingham Perl Mongers since early 2002.

JJ is probably best known within the Perl community as being the author of the new perldoc website. The inspiration for the site was to create a complete inventory of Perl documents in PDF, with browseable and searchable HTML versions, so that we could give them away on CD to conference attendees. However, the prototype site was unveiled at roughly the same times as the perldoc.com site was suffering network and hardware problems, and so JJ's site was mirrored on http://perldoc.perl.org. JJ has been making great use of his camera and imaging skills, as all the banners and many of the photos are all his handy work. JJ has been a member of Birmingham.pm since 2002 and his first YAPC was Paris in 2003.

More introductions, both of organisers and press-ganged members will appear in future announcements.

Contact

Should you wish to contact us, there is an email address available for direct contact, where you can mail us with your questions and suggestions. There is also the regular YAPC::Europe conference mailing list, which is open to all.

That's all for this release. Look out for more news and announcements in the future.

Thanks,
The Birmingham 2006 Organisers
www.birmingham2006.com