Auckland, Wellington and even Hawkes Bay have their meetups, but Christchurch, home of the original DrupalSouth, is falling behind. It is time to catch up!
What about; a round of lightning talks, a Drupal 7 code sprint and a Drupal-for-newbies session? The format for the evening or day could be camp/unconference style. Maybe something like;
- Morning: Drupal for newbies; Installing Drupal and basic configuration. Get started building a Drupal site, help someone else get started, or both! With a Drupal 7 code sprint on the side?
- At or around lunchtime: Open format lightning talks, for an hour or so, anything Drupal-related for any skill-level.
- Afternoon: Drupal 7 code sprint, BoFs.
Drupal 7 code sprints are important, and this is a call to anyone who uses Drupal to help get Drupal 7 released! You don't need to know how to write to help.
Drupal 7 looks on target to be the best web content management system and rapid development framework, ever! However, Drupal 7's belated release is hindered by it's critical issue queue and blocker issues for a beta release. There is a lot of work to be done. Be a part of the team that created Drupal 7!
I am thinking either Saturday 17 or Sunday 18 July. Or do people prefer evenings during the week?
Maybe in the function room at the Twisted Hop? It's not expensive and the cost can be covered. What other venues (ideally free) might be available? CII?
Please comment if you are interested, to get an idea of the level of interest in a meetup like this.
Comments
Saturday or Sunday
Hi Bevan, Great idea. I think a Saturday or Sunday broken into two distinct sessions is probably better, (beginners in the morning, advanced sessions in the afternoon) that way the event can be more complete and intensive. CII could be good but there's no beer there! :)
Evenings
I'm out for Sat 17 and prob Sun 18 also. But I'm keen to see meetups happen.
I'd like to see a day on a weekend, or event a whole weekend, for some presentations and hacking like the original DrupalSouth.
I'd be happy to meet on a weeknight (say, Tuesday), once a month for some hacking, presentations, Drupal discussion. I think it would be a great thing for the local drupal community to meet regularly.
I'd like to see a sustainable
I'd like to see a sustainable ongoing meet-up, and I think that's easier to achieve if we start small with a regular casual gathering rather than a small conference. A full day is a big commitment of time, both for attendees and organisers, and I'd hate to see us start with a big bang and burn out quickly.
That said, if you're really keen on the full-day event, I'd definitely support it, and there's no reason we can't do both: a one-day unconference as you describe, and also a regular (monthly, say) smaller meeting for drinks and Drupal talk. I've been discussing the latter idea with a few people, and feel I should get on with organising it.
As far as times go, 18 July would work better for me than 17.
Sorry I took so long to
Sorry I took so long to respond. I got swamped.
I would also like to see something sustainable and on going, but someone needs to organise it. I can help but I can't/won't do it alone. We need a low-cost or free venue that is appropriate for such things. After conversations at and attending a regular monthly meetup in Vancouver and DrupalCamp Chicago I recognize there is immense value in events like that for developers in the Christchurch/Canterbury Drupal community (and other regions too). Can anyone sponsor a space for an evening every month?
As for casual/social Drupal events/discussion, every Friday from 5pm at the Twisted Hop (Poplar Lane) there are at least a couple of (sometimes many) Drupal developers there. Ask/look for the "Effusion Group" table, or just look for the table with the most laptops on it and introduce yourself!
Maybe we can work out a venue and first meetup this evening?
Bevan/
I've been talking about it
I've been talking about it with Gold today, and he has some time to run with it.
I'm also planning to pop along to the Effusion drinks on Friday and say g'day.
For those that were
For those that were interested in this, there were a couple of us that have been talking about setting up a regular thing for it. Not quite like this one, which is more of a bar camp type event than a gathering like a meetup.
Anyway, there's an event set up. Hopefully people can make it. If not, this should be a regular thing. We can work around people for subsequent meetups.
http://groups.drupal.org/node/84764