Vancouver will soon be hosting its unprecedented fifth SkeptiCamp. And no, that has nothing to do with actual camping. No tents or campfires.

SkeptiCamp is a grassroots, informal, open conference modeled after BarCamp.

SkeptiCamps are designed to be informal, community-organized conferences for the purpose of people sharing and learning in an open environment. Everyone from casual skeptics to the experienced are encouraged to participate, by which we mean give talks and get to know each other.

A SkeptiCamp is not your typical skeptic conference. It will differ in three key ways:

1. Openness – anyone with something to contribute or a desire to learn is welcome and invited to participate. Topics are chosen not by the organizers, but rather by their presenters.

2. Participation – because admission is free we ask that everyone contribute in some way, either by giving a talk or helping to put the event together. At the very least we ask that attendees interact with speakers and other attendees.

3. Collaboration – by distributing the organizing effort amongst many, no one person carries too large a burden. By sharing one’s experiences as an organizer we can avoid repeating mistakes and instead build upon our successes.

Learn more about Vancouver SkeptiCamp 2011 here. At that link, you’ll find out all the details, including the date, August 6th 2011, the location: UBC’s Victoria Learning Theatre Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. In addition, you’ll be able to register to attend or give talks.

If you’re interested in volunteering to help run SkeptiCamp, there is a facebook group you can join, located here.

This year I’m volunteering as the speaker wrangler. Ideally we want about 18 speakers (that number isn’t set in stone) and each speaker would give a talk around 10mins in length with another 5mins of answering questions from the audience.

As I said, the event will take place at UBC, the room is already booked up, and we’d really like to get speakers confirmed with enough time that they can work on their talks and such. Hopefully we won’t have any last minute cancellations but in case we do, we’re going to try have back up speakers, possibly the organizers, to step in on such a cancellation.

I have already spoken with a number of people who have expressed interest in speaking, that’s great, we look forward to having you talk. Please talk to your skeptical friends and co-workers and encourage them to speak at the event. We are going to try to feature as many speakers who haven’t already given a SkeptiCamp talk before. We’d also like to increase participation from women. Our last SkeptiCamp had only one female presenter.

So, I’d like to get as many speakers coming forward as possible. Please let me know if you’re interested.

If you would like to sign up as a speaker please Email me! When emailing please let me know:

Name:
Contact info (phone/email):
Topic of talk (if you have one in mind, if not that’s okay) :
Any scheduling requests (if you’re only free in the morning or afternoon etc):
If you’d like to participate in some kind of rehearsal event before the SkeptiCamp:

Remember, this is an informal open conference. You don’t need to be an expert. The audience is one of the friendliest you could hope for and it’s a great place to practice your skills at public speaking and really engage in some great conversations.

I look forward to seeing you all there!