To promote continued growth of our local community i would like to start providing some "free" stuff to the group. I havent identified just what is it that we need to help us grow, but lets not have this put a stop to our plans.
Here are some of the things that i believe may/will be useful for our group:
- subsidize drupal educational material, such as: various drupal boosk or educational workshops
- sponsor meetups/drupalcamps snacks and drinks
- provide hosting for user generated content from the meetups/drupalcamps (videos, slideshows and more)
- promote self-sustainability of the group
- NYC Drupal gear (shirts, hats, speedos(?), etc)
- and more...
I am very new to any of this, therefore i lack any skill in doing proper outreach in order to acquire us the "free" stuff. This is where i seek the help of the New York community. I've began writing a letter to a hosting company, which is our neighbour, based out of NJ to try to secure us a hosting space where we can store all the material we generate. So far we have nearly 20GB of video(2 hours worth) which i have no clue where to place to make available to the community. I've written an introduction and begain writing paragraph of why they should help us for sponsoring the hosting space however, i had to stop because i ran out of creative juice (and work called).
Please help me finish write the letter so i can send it out. I want to represent you guys but i want to make it very clear that the letter was written by the community, I think it will make a very big difference.
Once i find more time i will try to figure out other places where we should outreach to sponsor our community's growth.
What else do you guys think we need?
write it in the comments bellow.
Comments
Stickers!
I'd love to have a Drupal NYC sticker for my laptop. Someone commented on my Drupalcamp Colorado sticker today, staring a Drupal-oriented conversation. Let's tout the Druplicon in NYC!
By saying that did I just
By saying that did I just volunteer to do it? Do we have an existing design? If so, I can find a sticker company if we can secure some funding. Any ideas where we would get funding?
Funding would come. lets
Funding would come. lets concentrate on identifying what we need. then lets identify on how to express that need to the "funding source". then we substitute a name into the letter once we find it ^_^.
I really thing we should concentrate for a moment on actually writing something that can be sent out to help promote and sponsor our group.
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I appreciate your efforts
I appreciate your efforts here, but I think that seeking funding is not necessarily the best first step to making improvements for the NYC Drupal group. It would be helpful to get a better sense of what people like and what they think could be better about the group. It may be the case that the most valuable and appreciated improvements could be achieved by making changes that don't require funding, such as structuring meetings differently. Perhaps another thread or should be started for discussion. Would a survey be appropriate?
I happen to like the I
I happen to like the I Drupal NY logo we have. I'm also a big fan of the NYC Drupal where it looks like the subway lines. I'm surprised we haven't used those for any of the Drupal Camps yet.
I'd be willing to make some sort of donation to get some stickers made. Get a price quote, and I'll see if I can toss you a few bucks.
Another option is to get the stickers made in cafe press and people can buy them and we can donate the proceeds to the Drupal Association. That way, we won't have to put out too much up front in costs.
Mike
Which logo looks like subway
Which logo looks like subway lines?
I'm looking into who manufactured the stickers fro DrupalCamp Colorado this year, because they are super high quality!
I know which ones Michael is
I know which ones Michael is talking about, but i've scanned through some of our older posts and i cant spot it :(
Edit: found it! http://groups.drupal.org/user/6251
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Sometimes interesting things appears on http://litwol.com
Is this the logo you're talking about?
I designed this for Drupal Camp earlier this year.
Since I'm a relic from the print world (remember ink on paper?) I'd be happy to donate 250 3 inch or 4 inch square stickers if the group agrees to approve the design or lets me know what changes to make.
Charles
This is a great logo. I also
This is a great logo. I also love the "I Drupal NY" ... which is ultra cool!
Can we have them ready in
Can we have them ready in time for the Aug 27th meetup ?
I would love the logo to have the group's website instead of 'drupal camp 2008' text.
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Sometimes interesting things appears on http://litwol.com
I think it would be great to
I think it would be great to have open logo submissions so people can view and vote on different logos. I'll look into how quickly the stickers can be made.
stickers and stuff, good; marketing, bad
The nyc drupal community and user's group seems to have been growing at a nice organic pace for the past few years. This has not required any fancy marketing schemes -- no dedicated organizer, no corporate sponsorships.
Simple person to person, face to face outreach and communication has been so very successful so far, why complicate things?
I'm all for having stickers, and other things that can be used to spark those person-to-person conversations that have been at the heart of this group's evolution.
one thing really bugs me about your letter
I just read the letter you link to. please take the following as constructive criticism, not a flame. You say:
Wow! when did this get discussed? In my opinion, the nyc drupal group is explicitly about the drupal community in the 5 boroughs. If you want to start a nyc-metro-area group, that's cool but I don't see why there is any need to expand the nyc drupal group beyond the borders of new york city. It's about local community. the larger you try to make it, the less sustainable it will become over time.
He is just acknowledging a reality. Northern NJ is part of NYC.
I think Oleg is just acknowledging a reality. The NYC group has lots and lots of members from New Jersey. We love our Jersey members! The NYC Drupal Group and the Northern NJ Drupal group are really one in the same. I don't even think there is a New Jersey group. This post is all that I found from a quick search on GDO. I think Drupalers in Northern NJ participate in the NYC group and Drupalers in Southern NJ participate in the Philadelphia group. A good host in Northern NJ is definitely within the real territory of our group.
What exactly would be done with this hosting space is another question. As I understand it, Oleg wants to create a sandbox type site where the more advanced DrupalNYC members can work on creating cool new tools for DrupalNYC that may eventually be implemented on GDO.
I've started a thread to
I've started a thread to discuss people's satisfaction and thoughts about improving the group in general. http://groups.drupal.org/node/13676