Last week RubyConf AU 2015 took place in Melbourne. A year prior to that, I’d put my hand up to run it… and over the course of twelve months, had assembled an excellent team, lined up speakers, venues, and a whole bunch of fun.

On Wednesday morning, it became real, as the workshops kicked off. By Saturday evening, it was finished with our after party at the Melbourne Lawn Bowls club in Flagstaff Gardens.

Going by the feedback we’ve received, I think it’s safe to say it was a success - at the very least, I’m thrilled with what we achieved.

But, of course, it would not have been possible without contributions from many, many people. I do want to list them here, even though it’s guaranteed I’ll forget someone and then feel terrible once I realise.

Firstly: to our sponsors, who not only gave us considerable amounts of money (no small thing in itself), but trusted and supported our efforts to grow the Australian Ruby community. Thank you Envato, realestate.com.au, Redbubble, reinteractive, Digital Ocean, JobReady, Torii Recruitment, GitHub, Pluralsight, BuildKite, Lookahead Search, EngineYard, Soundcloud and Travis CI.

To our venues: Jasper, Zinc, and Deakin Edge. You provided fantastic spaces for our community to listen, learn, eat and socialise within. A special thank you to the AV team at Deakin Edge: Blake, Wes and Brad, plus our own video recorder Anthony, returning yet again to make sure our talks are captured for future generations.

To our stenographer Rebekah, who provided live captioning of our conference proceedings. She was not only extremely good at her job, but also responded to Keith and Josh’s banter in style.

To the weather gods - Melbourne’s traditionally fickle weather gave us four days of warm sunshine, which was perfect for showing off our fine city.

To the team behind our ticketing system Tito, who helped us with beta features and late night support.

To the Ruby Australia committee, who were super supportive when I first asked about running this conference, and provide essential and appreciated financial and organisational support. You play a massive part in the health and success of our community.

To our event manager Deborah Langley, and her colleague Sam. Engaging Deb to work on our event made our lives a great deal easier, and helped us to achieve great things. Plus, Deb and Sam helped the running of the conference and events purr along smoothly.

To our volunteers, lead by the inestimable Liam Esler and Mel Sherrin, and our stage manager Maxine Sherrin. You took excellent care of our attendees and speakers, kept things running to schedule, and deserve all of the credit for how calmly the conference ran.

To Amanda Neumann and Darcy Laycock, who worked with me to select presenters from our massive selection of proposals. We agonised over which talks made the cut (and there were many excellent choices that missed out), but I think our choices were great ones!

To our local Rubyists: Healesville guide Pete Yandell, and cycling leaders Gareth Townsend & Gus Gollings, who all ensured our attendees from near and far got to experience a different aspect of Melbourne beyond just the conference sessions.

To our fabulous illustrator Dougal MacPherson, who, with his 15 minute drawings hat on, drew a picture of every session (including workshops), which then became lovely gifts for our speakers.

To Tim Lucas, for his tireless work on our slick website, plus the corralling of our beautiful and popular t-shirts - which were designed by Magdalena Ksiezak (for the conference) and Carla Hackett (for the Rails Girls workshops).

To the organisers of the previous RubyConf AU events - Keith Pitty, Martin Stannard, Michael Koukoullis, Josh Price, Elle Meredith, Jason Crane, Georgina Robilliard, and Steve Gilles. We have only been able to create this event by standing on your shoulders and reaping the rewards of your hard work.

To Ben Askins, who kicked off the bonding of our fantastic Australian Ruby community by organising the very first Rails Camp. That event changed my life.

To the large number of conferences that provided inspiration, including (but certainly not limited to) JSConf US and EU, FutureRuby, NordicRuby, eurucamp, and Web Directions: Code.

To our speakers, workshop presenters, Rails Girls organisers, and our entertaining and excellent MCs Josh Kalderimis and Keith Pitt. We gave you the stage, and you made us so very proud.

To my fellow organisers: Melissa Kaulfuss, Matt Allen, and Sebastian von Conrad. Through our shared vision and skill-set we have crafted a special event, all contributing in different and most definitely valued ways. I really cannot thank you enough.

To our employers: Inspire9, Envato, Lookahead Search and Icelab, who supported us in our endeavour, with time and patience and suggestions.

To our families, who recognised the commitment we had to give to make this real, and looked after us, loved and supported us. You’re the very definition of amazing.

To everyone else who helped in any way - I was inundated with offers of support and assistance over the past year, and while I didn’t have the opportunity to take everyone up on that, the offers themselves are greatly appreciated.

And finally, to everyone who attended the conference, and the broader Ruby community. It feels far more that we’ve done this with you than for you.

Thank you all, so very, very much.