We've tried a few tweaks over the past few years to try and make our meetup better. Some have worked famously, like moving to Bertha's and offering a beginners' session before the regular meetup. But there's always room for improvement. People on the Philadelphia DDO group are having a similar discussion which inspired this post here.
http://groups.drupal.org/node/239893
While the Baltimore meetup has it's own distinct character the challenges are the similar. The top questions are...
- What topics to address
- How to encourage Drupal folks to present and participate
- How to give newbies a leg up
I have a few ideas which I'll go into but please share your own.
For #1 & 2 more dialogue in between meetups will help. So speak up.
For #3 I'd like to propose that instead of the beginners' before the regular meetup that we consider a series of free training sessions on specific topics
Looking forward to hearing from you.