We had a great turnout (~18) last night at the monthly meetup of the Oxford Drupal User Group, and had three presentations lined up, which is more than usual (Often we don't have any presentations planned, but people often have ad-hoc demos). The three presentations were all really interesting in different ways, so a massive thanks to the presenters. However, we did allow all presentations to run on longer than planned.
This resulted in the third presentation running significantly over the scheduled 9pm finish, meaning that people inevitably started leaving. Not only is this potentially demoralising for the presenter, but it also meant we didn't have time for general questions and answers.
Thinking about this on my way home I started writing about what does and doesn't work well at a Drupal meetup such as ours, and realised that we should try to keep to a tighter schedule for presentations in our 2 hour meetup. I then received an email this morning to the same effect, but firmly suggesting a more structured approach to the event, and pointing out that many people newer to Drupal should be given clear time in which to ask more basic questions.
So in light of these reflections, let's try a more structured meetup agenda for our meetups next year.
How's about something like this:
19:00 - Welcome, coffee, introductions
19:15 - News and announcements
19:30 - Presentation (one longer or two shorter)
20:00 - Drupal Clinic / Bring your questions to be answered by the group
20:30 - General chat / break out for special interest chats
21:00 - To the pub
Please let's discuss this further, but if we do agree to stick more to an agenda, we should be able to ensure time is available to answer individual problems and encourage more people up the Drupal ladder!
So a big thanks to everyone who came last night, sorry if you didn't get a chance to ask any burning questions. Do feel free to post questions on this group where people are happy to offer help and advice.
Do please add you comments...
Nice one.
Finn
Comments
good idea
I think this is a very good idea. It gives time for presentations as well as a clinic and general chats at the end.
I wish to fess up to being
I wish to fess up to being the emailer this morning!
I think the new plan will work well Finn, reckon it'll give more folks time to have their say and get their questions answered.
Another idea I had was a show and tell sometimes, where we encourage people to come up for a short time (5 mins) and say what they're currently doing, present something.
I think that no matter how boring, obvious or not relevant one may think what you're doing is, actually probably most people either haven't heard of, or investigated it, or may be can answer your questions. I always get a lot out of presenting something, as I did last night. For example, I thought lots of you would know stuff about Video, because of course, I've been playing with it for ages, but it turns out that that wasn't the case.
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Mike Harris
w: http://mbharris.co.uk
t: +44 7811 671 893
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Promptness is an issue for me
Firstly thanks to Raz for his presentation, and sorry I couldn't stay for the last bit of it.
The big problem for me is that my buses to Witney leave at certain times, and they're only moderately convenient. If things finish for definite at 9pm, then I can either saunter over for the 9.20pm, or have a half in the pub and then saunter over for the 9.50pm.
But if things are sort of wrapping up at 9, and then people are still putting coats on or getting out of the building ten minutes later, and the expectation is to chat on the way out, then I invariably miss the first bus. And if I want to go to the pub, I have to expect to miss the next bus.
I'd be just as happy if we had more of an acceptance that people might leave. In which case, I think we should definitely not have any speakers after 8.30pm as you say, so that there's less risk of offence.
How we work that, when we're overbooked on presenters, is really hard, and unfortunately I've no suggestions from the Geek Nights: whenever I accidentally have three keynotes say "yes" then I always have to navigate a social minefield to not offend whichever one I have to then say "no" to...!
Ooh, one option might be a breakout room, if OeRC allowed it. People could even do Drupal ladder rungs in there.
Sounds like a plan, but ...
I agree, having a more formal/stricter timings would help us from running over again. But my "but" is that limiting the presentations to just 30 mins is quite tight, especially if you have 2. I'd go for 45 mins, and concatenate the final 2 sections.
Obviously, each month will be slightly different, and will depend on whether we have 1 or 2 presentations.
Last weekend I went to the London Sprint day, and started to climb the ladder. From that my thoughts are two fold. First doing anything on the ladder will take more than just the 45 mins of the final 2 combined sections of the evening. And secondly, the ladder is all well and fine, but I'd prefer to progress with learning and using D7, rather than helping to fix and release the core of D8.
Richard
45 mins is pretty long for a
45 mins is pretty long for a presentation in my opinion. 30 mins is a good time as a maximum, otherwise people can waffle, and if it's not really something you're interested in then you'll get bored.
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Mike Harris
w: http://mbharris.co.uk
t: +44 7811 671 893
0: http://mbharris.co.uk/keys/pgp.html