Multipack Presents: Being Green is the second in the series of Multipack Presents events, happening this coming Saturday back at the sexy offices of One Black Bear.

After the first extremely successful event concentrating on Emerging Standards featuring some interesting insights into HTML5, ARIA and other emerging standards, this time around we focus on how we can use the Web to make the world greener.

We have lined up some great talks from local eco pioneers:

• David Harte has been responsible for a lot of work in the Act On CO2 campaign in Birmingham and will be showing us how he and the team have been using the Internet to gauge CO2 emissions.
• James Robertson will also be talking to us about how he set up the Birmingham Freecycle group using online resources and how he made it one of the most successful groups in the World.
• Paul Lloyd will be lifting the lid on his latest project to make conferences more eco-friendly as well as intentions for other green issues around the Web.

Being Green will commence at nearby watering hole The Old Crown Pub at 2pm, giving all attendees a chance to socialise and mingle before the presentations kick off at One Black Bear’s Fazeley Studios from 4pm.

Campaign Monitor have also come up trumps yet again and kindly contributed towards the event’s refreshments.

Rather than going for the typical pizza and brand name beers, we will practise what we preach and only source local produce. Don’t be alarmed though as there should be some fine local beers available as well as locally farmed munchies.

The kind people at Moo have also offered us an exclusive discount for the event on their eco-friendly MiniCards - only available to attendees.

If you’re interested in attending, be sure to let us know on Upcoming so we know who to expect and, more importantly, how much beer and food we need. It should be a good one and certainly get you thinking more about being green.

During the January Multipack meeting, we discussed the idea of putting on a formal event, ideally presenting a hot topic to raise interest outside of the ‘pack.

Matt had planned to give a brief overview of his work with web accessibility in the emerging standard ARIA but, due to lack of appropriate facilities, this was made quite difficult.

Throughout the afternoon, there were also quite a few discussions going on about what Multipacker Bruce Lawson had been doing with HTML5 so it seemed like a good idea to invite Bruce to a future meeting for a more intimate discussion about his work.

Thankfully, Trev had already initiated a dialogue with Bruce and Stuart Langridge - another West Midlands based pioneer in the world of the Web - about attending a future Multipack meeting to do just this.

With sponsorship already secured for the next event from the awesome guys at Campaign Monitor (who do a marvellous job of hosting our monthly newsletter as well if you’re not already subscribed), it made sense to introduce a new format Multipack event for the February gathering.

After a few days of organising, Paul dabbling away to create a neat promotional graphic and Trev tapping into the Upcoming API to manage the content on our website, Multipack Presents was launched.

Multipack Presents: Emerging Standards will be hosted at the brand-spanking new offices of our good friends at One Black Bear in Birmingham City Centre (very easy to get to) on Saturday 21st February 2009.

The event will be starting from 2pm at nearby watering hole The Old Crown Pub to give you a chance to have a few drinks and mingle with the Multipack before moving on to the OBB offices at 4pm to commence the talks.

It should be a fantastic afternoon and evening with pizza and beer supplied by event sponsors Campaign Monitor and plenty to discuss during the event. After all the talks are out the way, there will be an open discussion panel with the presenters and, no doubt, further alcohol consumption in the usual Multipack haunts around Birmingham.

If you’re keen to learn more about emerging standards in the Web such as HTML5 and ARIA, I highly recommend you make your way to the event. It is an open invite so don’t think its just for the regulars. We’d love to see some new faces from far and wide. Just do us a favour and add your name to the Upcoming attendance list so we know how much beer to get.

With the Future of Web Apps London 2008 Expo commencing this morning, I have gone off on a tangent getting the entire schedule into my personal organisers so I can keep track of all the presentations going on during the next two days over the two tracks “Business” and “Developer“.

This time around, it’s not in the lovely Microformats, just a good ol’ fashioned calendar file, otherwise known as ICS.

All those who are heading down to London ExCel for the event might find this useful while arranging your personal schedule for the event.

Download the FOWA London 2008 Schedule calendar for Outlook, iCal or your mobile device

Feel free to give me a shout on Twitter if you’re down there - there’s even free beer in the evenings courtesy of Media Temple and Facebook.

For some of us, the idea of sitting in a park all day, drinking, eating, playing games and having an all-round laugh sits up there in our top five things to do in the Summer. For some of us, we need to get out in the open air as our jobs restrict us to the confounds of our computer, beavering away to create the next masterpiece website that our client is hovering over our back for.

If this sounds oh-so-familiar to you, the answer is in Warwickshire this Summer in the return of Geek In The Park.

Back in 2006, the Multipack hosted the first ever Geek In The Park which was a huge success. People travelled from all over the UK with their families for a day of sun, food and games in the beautiful surroundings of Jephson Gardens. In the evening, everyone contravened to The Jug and Jester, the local watering hole, for an open discussion with industry leaders Patrick Lauke and Bruce Lawson about accessibility on the Internet. Everyone enjoyed the day and were really looking forward to the next Geek In The Park.

After a year’s break, Geek In The Park 2008 returns to Leamington Spa on Saturday 9th August, this time promising to be just as enjoyable as last time, if not moreso.

Trevor Morris has managed to organise some fantastic speakers who will be announced very soon, as well as pulling out all the stops on a gorgeous website co-designed with Paul Lloyd. I suggest you sign up to the email announcements to be informed of future developments and announcements while you’re over there too.

The Multipack will also be going on a reccy to Leamington Spa on Saturday 14th June to find some suitable bars for the evening session of Geek In The Park, so if you fancy joining us, get to know some faces before August and generally have a good laugh, tag along! The finer details are all on Upcoming and it would be great if you added your name to the attendance list so we know who to expect on the day before moving on. We shall also be updating Twitter with our current location so be sure to follow us if you plan on joining in a bit later.

So put the date in your diary and be sure to get your train tickets to Leamington very soon. It should be a great day!