I'm Steven Jones, I organise the West Midlands Drupal user group, which holds regular monthly meetups. I've found it hard to get going with organising things and to work out what other local groups there are and how to advertise the group etc.
I have the feeling that the Drupal community in the UK is fairly disorganised in a overall sense, individual groups seem to be organised, but as a whole, we are not. I would like to change this.
I propose that 'we' should create some kind of 'UK Drupal Association' that can act as a central body for a few things:
- To channel funds for events. It's surprisingly hard to get a large business to pay a significant amount of money to some random person organising a Drupalcamp, or even directly to the people/company who will eventually need to be paid. It would be significantly easier to have a central organisation that could act as a bank account basically.
- To act as bank of knowledgeable people, so that if you want to organise something Drupal related, or want to know something specific (where should we advertise our events) then we can respond to such questions.
- To help prevent schedule conflict. By having a central body that people can ask: 'Will my planned event clash with another', we can avoid the rather silly situation of two groups competing for the same attendees.
This is mostly just an idea in my head, but I floated the idea at DrupalScienceCamp Cambridge earlier this month and it seemed to go down well. The Irish Drupal peeps have a similar body, which they set up a year or so ago, and I am discussion with them about their pain points, I'm also in contact with 'the' Drupal association.
I can also imagine that handled and set up wrongly such an organisation could become overbearing, a clique or far too political, which I want to avoid.
Thoughts?
I'm going to cross-post this drupal.org.uk and am also going to annoy people via email. Please feel free to discuss this in the comments, or contact me privately if you'd rather.
EDIT: Discussion of setting up an association has now moved to http://drupal.org.uk/forums/drupal-uk-national-association-0
Comments
UK Drupal Association
Great idea Steven. Thank you. We would support this for sure. Let us know how we can help.
Evan @ SubHub
Yes!
Totally!
Been meaning to get in touch to discuss this further since our discussions at DrupalScienceCamp.
I mentioned it to Jam on the way home who pointed out that this has been done in many countries (he mentioned Germany and France as examples).
We are planning the Oxford Drupal Camp in June and are already trying to work out how best to manage the money.
So I am all for it, and wonder how quickly we could set something up so that we might use it as a vehicle for funds.
Hope to see you at the Oxford Drupal User Group on Wednesday.
Cheers.
Finn.
UK Drupal
I think this seems like a great idea. It may also be possible to stream events/presentations also which would mean less reliance upon a few people for the majority of presentations and also more specialism without the need to travel to London, Norwich, Brighton etc. Mapping events out should not be too difficult. However, I feel that possibly drupal.org.uk would be the best place for it. I am not sure how maintained that site is, however, I do get occasional comments suggesting that it could look better as the "face" of Drupal UK.
I have no problem contributing to the general maintenance of drupal.org.uk or suchlike as possibly the best place to congregate for Drupal UK as a whole. My only concern is that it would end up as another job for the person who runs it currently to complete.
Sorry if this seems a bit dis-jointed as a comment. My overall opinion is; yes! Brilliant! Can drupal.org.uk become it please. Or at least let us know what is needed to become "it" (money/time).
Yes!
Yes!
Drupal UK
Totally agree with the idea!
True that the community is disorganised. Maybe due to most of us who are working on their own or very small teams.
The exemple of France is very good. The system of freelance is not as developed as in UK, that's maybe why they have an association since 2009. I can contact them and try to know more about about their experience with the association.
Like Will said, there is something to do with drupal.org.uk, Robert Castelo seems to be in charge of it. I will try to have a chat quick chat with him if I see him tonight at the drupal beer and chat.
I'm all for it too!
Where do I sign?
Richard Sheppard
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/richardsheppard
Great idea
...I was kinda thinking there was one already, I guess not!
I was planning to set up the Brighton Area Drupal Association soon as it was a pain organising payments for Drupal Discovery Day so wanted it to be easier for DrupalCamp Brighton in April. If I can do it through a UK one that would be even easier.
Happy to get involved and help out where I can.
Another vote in favour...
Thanks, Steven, for posting this - I know this was one of the suggestions to come out of the session at DrupalScienceCamp - given that we want to avoid clashes and also make it easier for people to set up events.
It also would enable people to think about more 'specialised' DrupalCamp events, such as having events specifically targeted at such 'big' topics as Drupal Commerce, Views, Module Development and Responsive Web Design.
I think it would be worth thinking about how we can use the drupal.org.uk site better. It's helpful as it is, but probably could do with a little updating.
Anyway, do count me in on any discussions about forming such a body.
Euan
More hands up....
If the association can provide cohesion as outlined above, then it must to the better for the community. Happy to help where I can to make it happen. It would perhaps be best if we could utilise the current drupal.org.uk site as a centre point if that option is available. Perhaps it is something that several people participants can come together and help out with rather than leave it one person to complete?
Specification of requirements
Maybe if we looked at drupal.org.uk as a project, we could create a specification of requirements (without overlapping on what drupal.org provides). Then we could look at where there are skills to be used from members of the UK community and look at getting something done for drupal.org.uk so all of the responsibility doesn't fall on 1 person to organise and develop everything as I fear that drupal.org.uk does for Robert Castelo at the moment.
Site and community
That would be best and it might make the UK site a community one as well as the association as a legal (tentatively here) entity to help the community? The discussion seems to be veering onto site and away from the notion of an association (though it is an important showcase / focal point).
drupal.org.uk
Drupal.org.uk is an entirely separate matter from having a legal entity that could represent the Drupal Association specifically in the UK. I want to 'park' discussion around drupal.org.uk, as any association wouldn't particularly have any say in it anyway, and we can have that (lengthy) debate in the future.
Seems fine
OK this is a fair enough suggestion. I only thought of it as the easiest way to organise geographically dispersed groups is via the Internet and it is a medium that we all understand and it seems evident, by the amount of things not organised on it, that groups.drupal.org does not cover all of the things we would like it to.
Agreed, lets not get
Agreed, lets not get sidetracked.
Interesting idea, there
Interesting idea, there definitely. NWDUG is this Wednesday so I'll bring it up with the group and see what they think.
+1
I think a co-ordinated programme of events is a great idea. The 'Scottish Drupal Association' was established last summer, initially to take the load off the one person (Duncan Davidson) who had organised the 2010 and 2011 Edinburgh Drupalcamps, but also to start thinking a little more strategically about growing the Drupal community in Scotland and raising awareness of Drupal to business, government, education and the web industry. Although early days, all seems well so far with our approach in Scotland, so maybe it's a simple model that can be replicated at a regional or national level too.
We have active DUGs in Glasgow and Edinburgh, but currently no tangible activity outside the Scottish central belt. So we put together a [subsequently successful] community grant application last year through the DA, to give us a small head of cash to organize a combined 'Drupal for Business' event and a higher profile Drupalcamp 2012 (scheduled for 25/26 May in Edinburgh). Not only do we want to dramatically build on the 100 or so attendees for the past 2 camps, we want to generate many more user groups across Scotland and create much more awareness of Drupal in general.
So, the key ingredients for an association or management structure seem to be:
Not sure if this thread wanted to go to this level of detail, but some sort of management will be needed to ensure we have a more structured approach to setting up events across the UK.
Rob Carr
Treasurer, Drupal Scotland
(FYI there will be announcements shortly on g.d.o and drupal.org.uk for the DrupalCamp Scotland 2012. It will definitely be held on 25/26 May
- the Fri/Sat of the Whitsun weekend -(*Edit: my bad: bank holiday this year is week later for the Jubilee) at the Informatics Forum in the centre of the University of Edinburgh's campus. Follow us on Twitter DrupalScotland for news of the event and any updates.)Oh cool, thanks for the
Oh cool, thanks for the brilliant info. I didn't even know that there was a 'Drupal Scotland' organisation!
Are your constitution and other founding documents available somewhere?
How long did it take for you to get things set up?
Steven Happy to have a chat
Steven
Happy to have a chat over the phone to explain how we went about setting up Drupal Scotland. Drop me an email and we can set it up.
Duncan
Chairman, Drupal Scotland
That level of detail is
That level of detail is great! It would seem that there really are two tracks that need to be worked on. 1) The Association 2) the website.
Right now I think the association should be top priority since laying the groundwork for that can be tedious and time consuming, especially when the banks come into play. There was a mention of setting up the association as a charity during Drupal Science Camp, and if the upcoming camps in Brighton and Oxford are going to be relying on the association for banking needs, this needs to get going quickly.
At the very least a registered address needs to be considered, deciding on a bank (maybe other associations can make recommendations?) as well as talk of the board/trustees. It might be best for the registered address were the same as someone who is possibly either on the board, or the chair (maybe their company, or a close by address), since the charity and banking documents will need to be sent somewhere and then the corresponding person will then need to track down signatures, etc, that are required.
I was a part of setting up a charity here in Liverpool, so I'm somewhat familiar with the process, although as a trustee I basically just signed stuff. The person that did all the work on getting the charity and banking set up for that is a friend of mine, though, so I may be able to pick his brain a bit if need be. Didn't one of the people in the community meeting at the science camp say he had experience in setting up charities, or something to that effect? I didn't get his contact info, but he might be a good person to get in touch with if anyone knows.
Jeni
Great to hear about the Scottish Drupal Association!
Great to hear about the Scottish Drupal Association, I had no idea! And that's the sort of detail and experience we need to help move this forward.
I agree it seems like we have two clear areas of discussion here association / website.
Initially I am interested in helping to set up "The Association." - but I am not sure this would/could/should be set up in time to be useful for the Oxford Drupal Camp (22/23 June 2012) to channel funds through, so I won't pin my hopes on that.
@arrrgh what help and advice did you get from the DA? Are there a standard set of aims or is there a standard constitution that the DA advises for regional associations?
Drupal UK Association
Agreed, I'm very much against unnecessary layers of management and red tape, but I think a Drupal UK Association would be useful for a variety of reasons:
1] Distribute money raised at popular Drupal events to fund new user groups around the country
- particularly from London
2] Co-ordinate set up of new user groups around the UK
- think County Drupal, where any county that doesn't have a user group can be 'claimed' by volunteers and the new user group nurtured
3] Endorse genuine Drupal community events
- we've been lucky that so far no unscrupulous agencies have jumped on the Drupal bandwagon and organised a 'DrupalCamp' as a day of nothing but self promotion, sadly it's bound to happen more and more now Drupal has become so popular.
4] Co-ordinate larger events
- for the last couple of years we've had events like Drupal For Publishing with 12 sessions running over an afternoon and 250 people attending, an association would enable us to scale up to 750+ attendees over a weekend and beyond.
5] Glitzier events
For DrupalCon London we looked into holding a one day event in a prestigious Central London location for the business community, sadly it didn't happen, but a UK Drupal Association could succeed with it. 150 tickets at £250 each + sponsorship would get us a great venue and enable us to market Drupal to a much wider audience.
The last time I brought up the idea of a UK Drupal Association in the IRC channel was about two years ago, and there wasn't much enthusiasm for it, glad to see there is now!
After DrupalCon London I felt we really needed an association, so together with Anthony Albertyn I started researching legal requirements, and getting advice from other European national associations. Anthony is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and his experience of how that association is organised has been useful. Hope to have a detailed proposal for discussion to put in front of the community soon.
Now there's people interested perhaps we could set up a working group and get more volunteers to make this happen?
I would also like to solicit peoples concerns about a Drupal UK Association and make absolutely sure we address those concerns.
Thanks for your points
Thanks for your points Robert, it does seem like a UK Drupal Association has got a lot of traction at the moment, unlike maybe a few years ago.
It seems like there are a lot of things that we could do with an organisation that represents the UK's Drupal interests, the more ideas the better, but let's be clear from the start this needs to not be a time sink and it needs to primarily make people's lives easier, not give them more work!
I think we've got enough people to get going, some people like Steve Purkiss or Finn Lewis need this organisation and we clearly have a few others who would like to see this happen, and I'm happy to push and nag people. I'll try to find some time today to flesh out an outline of next steps and get some of these ideas into a more formal and readable structure.
I think this is a great idea
I think this is a great idea - but I reckon it will need some fleshing out in a more formalised manor. Maybe some steps could be to:
I think a lot of this fits in with Roberts suggestions. I'm not sure about the County based approach, as co-ordinator of Drupal North East we cover about 4 counties (we have people travelling over from Cumbria now) and still only peak at around 20 people but regionally I think there will need to be different approaches.
I have a fairly long history in setting up and supporting non-profit organisations so may be able to help on that front - although I think a co-ordinated "network" would be the first step and then formalisation once it can be worked out how to have representation and avoid the "clique" concept you already mentioned Steven.
Anyway - I think the idea is really great and very happy to see someone push to make it happen - I'll help as much as I can and will discuss it also with the Drupal North East UG on the 22nd February when we meet to see if any others are up for getting involved and giving some time (which ultimately I think this is what it will depend on).
Thanks a lot Steven!!
Operations Director at Consult and Design International
Co-ordinator of Drupal North East
Global Volunteer Co-ordinator for DrupalCon
User groups in the UK that I
User groups in the UK that I know of:
Apologies if I've missed your group, let me know and I'll add it.
It's fairly easy to see who organises those groups, and some are already active in this thread, if they are not, then lets make them aware of it at least.
The other thing to say
The other thing to say (although I think its been said before) is that we should really involve the Drupal Association as they will be able to put us in touch with other places this has been done and could maybe run another event like they did a few months ago (although I guess there will be less attention to UK since Drupalcon London).
Just a thought - how many people will be in Denver - is it feasible to get a meet up there, if nothing else but as a BOF session?
Operations Director at Consult and Design International
Co-ordinator of Drupal North East
Global Volunteer Co-ordinator for DrupalCon
Drupal Association
I have reached out to the Drupal Association, and I'm sure that they'll get back to us when they can.
I will not be in Denver sadly.
I would be surprised if the
I would be surprised if the DA were to take an official position on this in the short term. This is not for lack of interest. The Association has limited resources, and has elected to focus its resources this year on its principal activities -- d.o and related resources, DrupalCons, and the d.o. infrastructure -- and two initiatives -- making d.o and related resources more useful to the developer community, and helping to address the developer deficit.
I suggest that you bring Jacob Redding into this conversation, as he is in the best position to determine if and how this can be worked into the Association's future.
One thing that I think we have learned is that, sooner or later, this will take resources, including money, and it will be better to plan for this before it gets started.
Caveat: As a board member, I am merely an interested party and I don't speak for the Drupal Association.
Jacob Redding (Exec.
Jacob Redding (Exec. Director) from the Drupal Association got back to me, and basically extended the offer of sharing experience of setting up a non-profit, joining phone calls where we might discuss it etc.
He has also requested that we don't call it the 'UK Drupal Association', which is fair enough, as he pointed out it might cause confusion in the community. We can bikeshed about a name later, but maybe we'll go with 'Drupal UK' for now.
If we have to avoid UK D A, then ...
If we have to avoid the name UK Drupal Association, then would the British Drupal Association be better? By using the longer British, rather than just the initials UK, would that be enough to be distinctive from the (worldwide) Drupal Association?
Having put a small amount of thought into this I think I prefer Association to Society. More informal, and implies a gathering of groups as well as of people.
Richard
I don't think that the DA is
I don't think that the DA is concerned about the regional appellation. They simply do not want other organizations to be called Drupal Association, as it implies a relationship that does not exist.
There are plenty of alternate terms (from Chambers): organization,, corporation, company, partnership, league, alliance, coalition, confederation, confederacy, federation, affiliation, consortium, cartel, syndicate, union, society, club, fraternity, fellowship, guild, clique, group, band, and, last but not least, sodality. While some of these don't work -- Drupal Cartel does have an intestine ring, though -- certainly some would, and you shouldn't discount the previously mentioned alternative of nothing -- UK Drupal.
For the record, I do not represent the DA in this forum.
Thank you iPad autocorrect...
For making my morning. That would be an "interesting ring".
Yipes.
Great step forward
Glad to see this guys, and thanks for bringing it up (again, from the sounds of things). I'd be happy to volunteer and help make this happen.
It certainly is almost always easier to open doors with a formal organisation than just a collective of individuals, so I'd say a formal legal entity is necessary for things like access to funds and resources.
Rob's list is a great checklist to start from and I'm sure there are lessons to be learnt from the Scotland one.
I guess my main concern would be the workload involved for volunteers and committee members. We all know how busy everyone is so having more people doing less would be ideal.
Farez
http://onsavvy.com - showcase your Drupal professional profile
Good point about workload
I agree very much with the point about workload.
It's important that tasks related to the new UK organisation are shared fairly, that everyone is absolutely clear on what they are required to do and committed to it, and what time commitment is involved.
The biggest danger with any such group is that the workload and decison making falls to a very small group of individuals who then get burned out.
So long as everyone is conscious of these potential problemsn then it should work fine.
Euan
+1
What can I say? It works for Italy - see http://associazione.drupalitalia.org - I think it's a great idea.
+1
One of the things that's come up with the South Wales meetups is the disparity in needs of different local groups. Bristol, for example, has a very different kind of community to what we have here, and the focus may well be more on promoting Drupal in South Wales with more newbie or business oriented events, compared to a stronger development focus elsewhere.
Having a national association would likely help us to figure out the regional variations in communities, and perhaps figure out how best to approach promotion in each.
Also, the timing aspect would be really worthwhile - a rolling calendar of regional events that a group could slot into would be pretty helpful.
I'm all for it :-)
Anglo-centric
Not that I want to make more problems than I solve, however, from the groups that I know (as listed by Steven above) and the fact that a Drupal Scotland already exists, does it not invalidate it being a UK organisation and make it an English & Welsh organisation?
Although I just re-read my comment and thought that I should point out I don't want to try and make it too political.
I see no reason to generate a
I see no reason to generate a divide, where one doesn't exist. The 'Scottish Drupal Association' - specifically its bank account - exists mainly as a vehicle to organize an annual DrupalCamp, and hopefully some spin-off events such as code or design sprints. We have a critical mass of people in Glasgow and Edinburgh, but need to reach out to areas of Scotland and Northern England to spread the Drupal word and build our community. A bank account for an association (think: Scout groups) isn't a massive overhead, just a few trustworthy people who can vouch for the account; in our case those [3] people live less than 1 hour apart, so meeting up is easy.
The key to success is federation and growing from the ground-up: it's the Drupal way. A centralized UK (or English/Welsh - WTF?) association could quickly become too bureaucratic. We just need a way to communicate intentions between those groups within the UK that seem to be growing naturally. That could easily be achieved via g.d.o, and maybe an annual diary meet [tagged onto a DrupalCamp somewhere?]. Keep it simple.
The UK g.d.o site should be updated, and we can start from there. I updated Scotland's g.d.o site to OG Panels - not the greatest UX, but an improvement, as it promotes upcoming events, jobs and a few useful articles - and it would be good to do the same for the UK site. We also need to promote local/regional groups: I posted a wiki article listing known groups (http://groups.drupal.org/node/206533 - please edit) and it would be useful to promote this from the front page of groups.drupal.org/united-kingdom. Then we know who we are...
great but....
Hi think this is a great idea, but my phone is going crazy...so I am unsubscribing from this...
I'd rather pay my annual
I'd rather pay my annual association fees to a UK organisation. We need this stuff in the UK to support the annual UK conference we really should have
Just like on https://association.drupal.org/membership
Full Fat Things ( http://fullfatthings.com ), my Drupal consultancy that makes sites fast.
If you really have to do it, make something as small as possible
Having been involved in the UK Drupal community for a long time, I have often thought about this. However, having run a few different organisations, in commercial and non-commercial forms, for a few years, I am now generally skeptical. It's very easy to create a crap organisation and very difficult to create a good one.
If we really have to create an organisation, then create the smallest structure possible. Approach an organisation like you would a very complex software project. Write up a bunch of stories, work out if your requirements are absolutely critical, and throw away every single one that you think you can live without. Then design a set of tests that will allow you to know whether or nor the organisation is successfull.... and build to pass your tests.
Organisational bloat is a very evil thing.
how small is possible?
+1 for avoiding bloat, but how small could a UK Drupal Association be while still being accountable (and being seen to be accountable) to the members and community?
Too true, my friend!
It's all about being
It's all about being connected with the community I think.
So long as communication was good, and people thought that the organisation was approachable then I don't see why we couldn't still be small and accountable.
My vision for this was more of an organisation that helps by coming alongside the local meetup leaders, rather than a top-down leadership dictating events that will take place etc. If we can get that right, then we'll empower the people who actually need it.
Drupal France
Just had a quick chat with Julien Dubreuil from the association "Drupal France et Francophonie (DFF)".
The french drupal association in France exists since the Drupalcon Paris in 2009. So basically 3 people, elected by the members of the association. It cost 20€ to be a member.
The association helps for the main following services :
- community website Drupalfr.org. To manage all the informations about the association, events ...
- Translation server
- Organization of Drupalcamps & events
- Management of the french documentation
Moving Forward
Like any good project we need to start at the top level and drill down into the details.
1] Planning tools
I suggest we move the discussion to it's own group, it's going to get unwieldy discussing everything in one post. Set the group up either here or on drupal.org.uk
Also suggest setting up a Google Doc to keep track of what's been agreed on.
Plus a Google hangout or Skype Call to discuss, and a hashtag to publicise this discussion so more of the community is engaged.
2] Goals of the associations
What outcomes do we expect from a UK Drupal Association?
3] Requirements of the association
What are the absolute necessities that we need to run an association?
+1
+1
Great idea to move it on but
Great idea to move it on but please can we avoid Google and Skype? I don't see why people should be required to agree to Google's now-with-more-evil privacy policy or Microsoft's Skype terms. Set up a group on some drupal site, please, and use drupal-based groups and wiki pages and so on.
That does seem like a good
That does seem like a good way to progress this, but I'm wondering why we can't just discuss this in the United Kingdom group, ideally we'd get as many people involved as possible, rather than kinda running off and doing it behind closed doors1. Please let me know if using the UK group is going to end up spamming tons of people.
Getting a defined set of goals and from that a list of requirements seems to be a good way to go though.
Even if the group is open and public, the fact that someone probably needs to look around and probably know where it already is makes it kind of closed. g.d.o sucks for keeping up to date with things. ↩
keep on gdo
I'd prefer if discussions / organisation were kept on gdo - I tried similar myself when I set up the Brighton club and had a google group but being on gdo means you get found in searches etc.
Ideally we could show content from gdo in a nicer format on an external site, create a better interface, etc. but keep the content in the system.
Keeping discussion on g.d.o
Keeping discussion on g.d.o makes sense to me - it is Drupal based, it is open for all to see, it is indexable, it does not rely on third party evilness etc. but I do kind of see Rob's point about a separate group.
- There may be people in the UK group who aren't that interested in setting up an association, although upon reflection, one can unsubscribe from this post if it is generating too much noise. (Perhaps if these threads were paginated it would seem a little less daunting to those that stumble upon a long thread.)
- We can create group specific polls (if they work), events, wikis etc.
Either way, a list of goals and requirements is clearly important.
And perhaps we should start thinking about a physical (+virtual) meeting where we could nail down an initial (simple) constitution and initial board / trustees or whatever.
As Greenman said: avoid bloat and keep it simple. In which case could we not set up a solid foundational vehicle pretty quickly, and build on it over coming months?
Let's act!
+1 We've been talking about
+1 We've been talking about this for at least a couple of years now. Let's do it then :)
I don't mind which planning tools we use, Drupal or not (e.g. we all use IRC, Drupalcon uses Skype and Zendesk etc.)
Tools
We need:
1] somewhere to have a rolling discussion
I suggest we add a forum to drupal.org.uk specifically for discussing setting up the association.
There's about 4,500 users registered on the site, and we can feature it on the Home Page, so INMHO that makes it a good deal more public than this group.
2] somewhere to write a structured plan
My vote is for Google Docs, alternatively we can set up a book on drupal.org.uk, an extremely long wiki page in this group is going to be difficult to deal with.
3] live discussion
In person, followed by an on-line chat so we can include everyone who couldn't make it to the face to face - will either need to be on Google hangout or Skype I think, if you disagree with using these please suggest an alternative technology that we can use for a group voice chat.
Re. Tools
1] I see no reason not to use a forum on drupal.org.uk. Presumably we (with Rob onside) have more opportunity to control and extend the functionality there than on g.d.o. (edit - plus the 4,500 members on d.o.uk vs 513 members here on the g.d.o uk group should give us a larger audience)
2] I like Google Docs for the collaborative functionality, which for me outweighs the negatives of their policies for these purposes. But if there are others with stronger feelings, I'm also happy to work with book pages.
3] Live discussion++ let's set a date! Face to face for those that can make it with online follow up sounds ace!
Next steps
Robert, could you create us a forum/group on http://drupal.org.uk then please? Whatever we need to have a discussion space.
I think if we have a massive plan then we'll really never get anywhere through it. I think we need a few long term goals, and then some specific short term ones, at least until we get set up and have a procedure for deciding what we should do.
For example, I think we should have the short term goal of setting ourselves up, and we'll need a detailed plan for doing that, but I think it's way too early to have a goal/action point of: 'Organise an event for 500 people in London'. That can totally come later if that's what we want, but let's avoid scope creep for now.
I'm perfectly fine with Google docs, I'm not sure 'everyone' needs to be able to edit it, so long as everyone can comment about it somewhere, and it will be unlikely to be used for more than a few months.
I do see the perceived value of this, but at this early stage I'm not 100% sure I see the benefit of a massive group discussion.
Sure, we will benefit from speaking to specific people who've set such organisations up before, and it would be good to have a chat with as many people as possible about concerns/thoughts at some point but I can see it turning into people just saying: "Hey we could do 100 different things" and we could quickly devise a plan for burning out very quickly.
My feeling is that we should get the ball rolling on working out what we need to do to set up whatever we're setting up, that we consult where we need to, but that we aim to set up the bare minimum. We basically just steer clear of any high impact decision until we have the the ability to consult as many people as possible, and then we actually have the procedures in place to make a decision out of that.
It seems that pretty much everyone wants some kind of organisation, but that there are differences between what people want that organisation to do. Let's punt that harder decision until later.
Short clear goals
I totally agree that getting some short term goals is a good way to start. Obviously throughout the UK Drupal community people will have a range of reasons for why they would like a Drupal UK, but it all comes to naught without actually setting it up in the first place. There does need some way for everyones opinion to be valid (as we do operate in a largely open space), however, I have no problem with discussions being led in certain directions as that is almost always needed to facilitate getting things done (and not endlessly talking about it).
In fact I am rather pleased that there also seem to be a good few people who already have ideas/plans about how to start and set things up, so well done you. Looking forward to movements forward soon.
It only needs a few people
I also agree - but you only need a small number of people to lay the foundations (name, bank account, draft goals and constitution)
I'm sure we all tell start-ups all the time - start focussed & lean in order to rapidly build something that's suitable for public feedback then iterate into something bigger.
Committees have never been renowned for the speed or efficiency that's required to kick start anything, they are great at maturing and democratically building on those foundations.
Most Etherpad sites are
Most Etherpad sites are better than Google Docs. Google Docs always starts asking some users to register with Google, which is now under an even more evil privacy policy.
Alternative technology that we can use for a group voice chat? Errr, the telephone? Pretty much universal, pretty cheap to use (03talk.com for example, included in bundled minutes, up to 100 participants), or if everyone has voip (standards-based free apps widely available) there are zero-cost services like http://webconference.iptel.org/about.py
Forum
Forum has been set up to discuss set up of a Drupal UK National Association:
http://www.drupal.org.uk/forums/drupal-uk-national-association-0
I set up a Goals and a Requirements forum so each goal and requirement can be a separate post that can be discussed in detail, and we can quickly see all goal and requirement listed out.
Let me know if we need any other sub-forums.
International Drupal Associations
There was a BoF session at DrupalCon London on setting up national drupal organisations.
I started a group here on D.O to try and gather the organisers, leaders, interested folk together to share ideas, strategies, pitfalls... etc.
Please keep us posted, and pop in with questions... :)
Glad to see Drupal Scotland has already been mentioned!
There's a list here.
http://groups.drupal.org/international-drupal-associations
Donna Benjamin
Former Board Member Drupal Association (2012-2018)
@kattekrab
Great idea
I would be more than happy to help/be useful/make tea... :)
Thanks for the update at the July OxDUG meeting
Steven, thanks for the update at the Oxford Drupal User Group meeting at the start of July. I've not (yet) read all the comments posted here, but notice that Robert Castelo from the London Drupal UG has made quite a lot of positive comments about your idea. He even sounds as though he is thinking along the same lines as you. It would be good to see the merger of your two, and others', ideas into a UK wide umbrella association or organisation to coordinate each area's user groups and Drupal Camps. All the best.
Richard