July: drupalchix:msp chocolate cake meeting

I think this is a great idea -- I am planning on taking a long weekend but I should be back on tuesday -- again, great idea!

Here's a really great video of webchick talking about women in open source (which I am watching, it is an hour long)

maybe we can talk about when we are eating cake.

http://bit.ly/MEdEU

hey everybody

just wanted to let you know that we did meet up at pizza luce & talked for a good 2 hours about all kinds of things interconnected with drupal.

subjects that came up: open source, teaching programming, drupal & experimental art, circuit technology, technology & access, content/project managing, 'craft' vs. 'make' magazine, inter-generational transfer of knowledge among women in technology/arts, sustainable business practices and more.

there were 5 of us there, and at least 5 more people who said they would like to come but had scheduling conflicts.

we'll meet up again when we feel the time is right (not regular meetings!)
we'll meet at different places and eat good food.

new group project
we will definitely organize a patch review party for a weekend soonish. probably on a weekend afternoon (about 4-6 hours with optional socializing afterwards.) this might coincide with a patch review weekend -- and/or we'll just figure out how to do this & crash irc asking for stuff to do, or attack an issue queue.
translation: we will get together in a room with our computers and choose some tasks that will benefit the creation & development of drupal 7. don't worry if you don't have any idea what a patch is, or haven't installed drupal 7 yet, or if the issue queue is daunting, or if you don't know php.

we will figure out tasks that we can accomplish in a few hours. ideally you will come away having helped drupal 7! (see also webchick's explanation of the benefits of getting involved with this whole 'patch' thing)

we shared a lot of resources with each other - here are some projects mentioned (and everyone please feel free to add links if I forgot any):

• twin cities free geek/twin cities open circuit (Free Geek is a community organization that recycles/refurbishes used technology to provide computers, education, internet access and job skills training to those in need in exchange for community service.)
• twin cities dorkbot (people doing strange things with electricity)
• processing programming language (Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions.)
• Advantage Labs (drupal focused training/hosting/education)
• Common Craft (three-minute videos help educators and influencers introduce complex subjects. )
• scratch programming language (Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.
  Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create and share Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. )
• ex-co/Experimental College of the Twin Cities (free and open classes - building a community around education for social change)
• Open Atrium (alternative intranet/community/project organizing tool built in drupal)
• butyoureagirl (Adria Richards' blog)

Thanks for setting this up, Chach - I love every opportunity to talk about Drupal or Free Geek or other fun open tech projects! Especially with my lady friends! :)