A month or so ago, Nathan Hamblen, of the New York Scala Enthusiasts, sent an email to Nermin Serifovic and me, in our respective capacities as co-founders of the Boston Area Scala Enthusiasts and Philly Area Scala Enthusiasts users groups. Nathan mentioned that the Scala Lift Off conference, originally scheduled for late October, 2010, in New York, had been canceled. Nathan thought our three Scala users groups might be able to put together a small U.S. East Coast symposium, to fill the void.

Thus was born the first Northeast Scala Symposium.

Here was our original announcement:

The Boston, Philadelphia, and New York Scala user groups have combined to organize the first ever Northeast Scala Symposium. This event will be held at the Meetup headquarters in New York, on February 18th, 2011.

We’ve got lots of great speakers within our groups. At the Symposium, we’ll get to share them among the groups and get to know Scala enthusiasts (and employers) across the region. And to pull in a bit of extra talent, we’re offering $1,000 towards travel expenses for a headline speaker from anywhere. Applicants need only get in touch with one of the organizers with a short description of their talk. (See below for contact details.) Conference registrants will then vote for their favorite talk, and the winner will receive the full travel offset. We need to move quickly on this, so that people can make plans, so don’t be shy about prodding your favorite person in the Scala world to pitch a talk.

Your registration fee of $50 covers the headline speaker’s travel offset, and food and beverages for the event.

Several people pitched some neat-sounding talks. The RSVP’d attendees voted, and Daniel Spiewak narrowly beat out Jonas Bonér (of Akka fame) for the featured slot. But, lucky for us, Jonas is still going to come and give a talk.

So far, more than 50 people have ponied up their $50 and RSVP’d “yes,” including some luminaries from the Scalaverse.

If New York and Scala sound like a fun way to break up a cold February, there are still some slots left. Details are at http://www.nescala.org/.