Name: Doug Vann
Group - Role: groups.drupal.org/indiana - Manager
Meeting Frequency: meets twice a month
Age of physical meetups: 15 Months
Twitter: twitter.com/dougvann
We get anywhere from 9 to 17 ppl at our meetings. Every few months or so we have a "Drupal HackFest" See my BlogPost http://dougvann.com/blogs/dougvann/09-01-31/drupal-hackfest-definition
We have a wide variety of people in our group, a module maintainer, themers, graphical designers, network engineers, PHP programmers, and people using only core + contrib modules to deliver very nice sites.
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Hey everybody. Lets get organized. Please reply to this post and give the following details.
Your Name
The groups that you lead and what your groups.drupal.org role is for that group. Groups have one *MANAGER*, Multiple *ADMINs*, and of course *MEMBERs* Please Pick the highest role you have in your group. Even though I'm the one manager for my group I rely heavily on the admins that I created because they share the work load. :-)
How long [if at all] you have been meeting.
If you don't mind sharing your twitter account. :-)
Also mention anything else you want to say about you or your group.
Anything else you want to add about yourself OR the group.
I will be working with Josh Konig http://drupal.org/user/3313 to maintain the GDO site and add value to the local groups. I will be working along with Drupal Association Member Cary Gordan http://association.drupal.org/user/Cary_Gordon as he represents the Association's interests in local groups as well as DrupalCamps and related events.
Thanks to Chris Davis [Cincinnati Leader] for getting this group started while we were talking to Cary at a BoF at DrupalconDc2009
Chris is definitely on fire to see communication and resources flow amongst the leaders of local groups.
Let get started and start sharing stories and resources on how we run great groups, how to start them, getting sponsors, getting facilities, presenting, etc.
This is OUR group and everyone is invited to participate.
- Doug Vann
- www.dougvann.com
Comments
Drupal Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC
I organize the Durham/Raleigh/Chapel Hill drupalers but on g.d.o am just a member of the North Carolina group. We tried to create our own g.d.o group awhile back and we're rejected. I'd like to try to create the group again but I want to run that by everyone at our meeting on Wednesday first. Our group has primarily been communicating on Meetup.com here:
http://drupal.meetup.com/19/
We've been meeting for about 6 months and have between 15 and 30 people at our meetings.
My twitter is http://www.twitter.com/juliakm.
Drupal Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC
I'm a Co-Organizer of this group. We've had a lot of success so far with having 45-60min presentations at each of our monthly meet ups, and tomorrow night we are going to discuss upping the frequency of meetings to once every-other week, with the odd meetings being free-form Q&A and Hack Night type activities.
If anyone has experience leading a more free-form type of meeting, we'd love to hear any advice, tips, etc. about how to make the sessions productive and meaningful.
My twitter is http://www.twitter.com/catchatorie
Atlanta Drupal User Group (ADUG) background
I've been one of the co-organizers for our Atlanta group the last 6 months or so, and the chapter was started about 2 years ago. One obvious upcoming session idea is to get Drupalcon attendees from your local meetup to do a debriefing with members who were not able to attend. Here is some more background on Atlanta and the Drupalcon presentation we are doing. http://www.mediacurrent.com/blogs/atlanta-drupal-user-group-adug-present...
We've historically met at restaurants twice a month, but just moved to the presentation room of a large staffing agency. We just introduced sponsors for $100 (to primarily cover pizza/beverages). I'll do a separate blog or write-up with more ideas soon.
Has everyone seen this thread http://drupal.org/node/160239 that was originally started by Dries? I found it very helpful when I was first getting involved with the Atlanta group.
@ Julia and Sheena - nice meeting you all at the BoF session. I am very interested in getting the Atlanta (or Southeast) Drupalcamp kick-started. In fact, I received feedback today from a local university that they would be willing let us use their facilities - lots of wifi access, meeting rooms, parking, etc. Unfortunately, the soonest they could commit to is a September, 2009 timeframe. I'll keep you posted as I get more info or let me know if you are interested in helping coordinate.
Thanks,
Dave
Mediacurrent
Cincinnati (CINDUG)
I'm Chris Davis - I'm a co-organizer of the Cincinnati group, and a admin for http://groups.drupal.org/cincinnatisw-ohio-cindug, as well as manager for this new LUGO group. cjdavis on twitter.
We have been meeting regularly once a month since September, but it has been pretty informal - really a two hour chat between the 6-8 people that show up. This past week while I was away at DrupalCon was the first 'organized' meeting, and it sounds like it went well. With the 3 people that attended DrupalCon giving debriefing presentations for the forseeable future, we should have plenty of good material.
We have recently secured meeting space at the main branch of the Cincinnati public library, and have it scheduled out for the next year straight on the first Wednesday of the month. We moved it from a different week to avoid being too close to the local PHP group - a couple of members were having a hard time justifying two meetups in a single week to their families.
Now that we have a regular time, place, and an actual agenda of interesting topics, I think we should see some real growth over the next year.
Santa Barbara and Los Angeles groups
I helped start the Santa Barbara group and I've been astonished that we've already outgrown our original venue. Part of that may be that 7-8 attendees at our last meetup came up from Los Angeles! The Los Angeles group is very active and I've been helping Chris Charlton and Mike Stewart as the LA membership has been growing.
Every now and then a few of us meet somewhere in Los Angeles for "Drupal Cafe" meetings. So far we've updated a module to Drupal 6, discussed patch management and helped a fellow Drupalista get up to speed with Subversion. Unlike the regular Los Angeles meetups, Drupal Cafe meetings tend to be informal, social gatherings that focus on helping a particular individual.
I'm on Twitter at @christefano and our company, Exaltation of Larks, is at @xltn.
I'm not sure how helpful that is since the distinction between managers and admins is more of an Organic Groups design decision than how many local groups are actually structured.
Seattle group
Our group is very loosely organized, and I am just a "member" of our g.d.o group. As far as I know, we don't publicize the meetings beyond g.d.o, although someone may be posting them on other local tech calendars occasionally.
We have monthly meetings that tend to be fairly informal, with people making agenda suggestions as comments on the meeting announcement (which is always on groups.drupal.org/seattle), and others showing up with their show-and-tell and/or questions. Occasionally we have a more formal presentation; more people usually attend for presentations or when someone decides to sponsor free pizza for the meetings. We used to meet at a coffee shop, but lately have been meeting at offices of members who work for companies with space and willingness to host a meeting.
One thing our group does that is particularly interesting (at least to me) is that for about 3 hours before our meeting, we have "co-working" time. People basically show up early to hang out, chat, work on projects, and get some help/ideas from others.
Drupal programmer - http://poplarware.com
Drupal author - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920034612.do
Drupal contributor - https://www.drupal.org/u/jhodgdon
Dallas Texas Drupal Group
Hey everyone! I co-lead the Dallas group with Tom McCracken of LevelTen (tomdude48). We have over 100 on g.d.o and running 20-25 at our monthly meetings. It has come a long way from 4 or 5 of us meeting in coffee shops 18 months ago!
We are starting planning for a DrupalCamp Dallas later this summer. Please msg me or reply to this with any advice or tips.
Great meeting some of you at Drupalcon and glad to be part of this group!
Lee
Obi-Wan (Lee Raney)
Dallas Drupal Group
www.KoineMedia.com
www.Christian.com
Lee Raney
Dallas Drupal Group
www.ChurchFinder.com