Downtown Los Angeles Drupal Meetup on December 18, 2012, at Droplabs and via WebEx + Holiday Party + Food Drive for the LA Food Bank!

Our Downtown Los Angeles Drupal meetup in December is on Tuesday, December 18, 2012 and once again we're combining it with our annual holiday party and food drive. Help us raise even more than we did last year when we raised $500 for the LA Food Bank! See http://groups.drupal.org/node/267768#food-drive for details.

This event is being hosted by Droplabs, your FREE coworking and hackerspace in Downtown Los Angeles. At this meetup, we're having our usual news and announcements, raffle prizes, lightning talks (which are short, bite-sized presentations) and featured presentations, and plenty of mingling and networking with your local community during our annual holiday party. See http://groups.drupal.org/node/267768#agenda for our agenda for the evening.

Holiday Party

Even if you can't make it to the meetup, you're welcome to join us after all the raffle prizes, job announcements and presentations for our annual holiday party. We'll be mingling and networking for most of the evening, and the party is potluck-style so bring something to share that you like to eat or drink. Post a comment below to let others know what you're thinking of bringing.

Food Drive for the LA Food Bank

We're organizing another food drive for the LA Food Bank. While the LA Food Bank distributes food to over 640 charitable agencies (Midnight Mission, Boys & Girls Club, etc.). Here are some good ideas of what to bring:

• Cash (seriously, food banks can do a lot with a dollar!)
• Proteins, including peanut butter, canned tuna, canned chicken, etc.
• Soups and stews
• Pasta and rice
• Cereal, including breakfast cereal and oatmeal
• Canned vegetables, including tomatoes and tomato sauce
• Canned or dried beans and peas
• Canned fruits
• Fruit juice, boxed or canned
• Prepared box mixes, including macaroni and cheese and Hamburger Helper
• Shelf-stable milk

If you're thinking of bringing perishables, baked goods and home-made dishes, bring those to the holiday party instead!

Thank You to Our Sponsors

This event is being hosted by Droplabs (@Droplabs), a collaborative Drupal event and coworking space in Downtown Los Angeles. We're quickly gaining a reputation for being the only free coworking space around with a freemium business model: come work here for free and only pay for the extras, such as 24/7 access, equipment rental and a locker for your belongings.

Our drinks, video conferencing and raffle prize sponsor for this event is Exaltation of Larks, a Drupal strategy, consulting, development and training company with a team of Drupal experts in Los Angeles. We create fun websites, mobile apps, virtual worlds and e-commerce sites. Follow us at @LarksLA to learn more about our Drupal services and upcoming trainings.

Agenda

As always, we'll also have community Q&A, during which time anyone in attendance can ask questions, divine answers from the crowd and give brief, 5-10 minute-long presentations known as lightning talks. We'll finish off the night with even more networking and a Drupal After Dark at 9:00pm.

For any changes to our agenda for the evening, stay tuned to this meetup announcement or click the Sign up button below (or both!) to be notified when the agenda has been updated.

   6:00pm
   Mingling and Networking
   Projector and Tables / Chairs Setup

   6:55pm
   Start of WebEx Meeting

   7:00pm
   News and Upcoming Events, including:
     • Drupal Travelers Program
     • Drupal Coworking Friday
     • Interesting events listed at http://groups.drupal.org/events
   Breakout Sessions
   Users Helping Users (continued)

   8:00pm
   Raffle Prizes!
   Lightning Talks
   Featured Presentations

   9:00pm
   Wrap-up, Clean-up and Close-up
   Drupal After Dark and more networking

Join us on WebEx and Twitter!

The featured presentations at this meetup will be broadcasted via WebEx, courtesy of Exaltation of Larks. WebEx works in your browser, whether you use Linux, Windows or Mac OS X.

To join the meeting, click the Sign up button below to receive the meeting URL and password (a Drupal.org account is required).

During the meetup, several of the event organizers will also be monitoring Twitter for feedback and questions that mention @DowntownDrupal.

Breakout Sessions

We have several spaces available for breakout sessions. This is an open, multi-track format where we break into groups and discuss a variety of topics. Each breakout session is led by a volunteer who picks the topic, picks the space and can optionally report back to the larger group in the form of an announcement or lightning talk.

This is also an opportunity for Users Helping Users, which is a participant-driven format where members of the community give and receive help with whatever questions and problems they're having with Drupal.

Please note that while Users Helping Users is not designed to be a replacement for bona fide consulting from a Drupal professional that there are plenty of Drupal experts and professionals who attend our meetups and sometimes they need help, too!

Featured Presentations

At this meetup, we're having our usual news and announcements, raffle prizes, lightning talks (which are short, bite-sized presentations) and featured presentations.

Raffle prizes! Collect them all! Must be present to win!

Raffle prizes at this meetup have been provided by Exaltation of Larks. Our raffle prizes often include discount codes, magazines, DVDs, books, and free seats to professional Drupal trainings. We are always grateful to our sponsors for their continued support.

If you have any items you'd like to donate to the raffle, please contact any of the organizers at the meetup. Thank you!

Location and Directions

   Droplabs
   651 Clover St.
   Los Angeles, CA 90031

Droplabs is in the Mission Junction neighborhood of Los Angeles at Big Art Labs, just 1 mile down Main St. from Philippes (the first-ever venue for Los Angeles Drupal meetups!) and Union Station. We're one block west of The Brewery, the largest live-and-work artists' colony in the world.

Free parking in our large parking lot is first-come, first-served. After parking in the lot, follow the yellow signs that point to Droplabs. (If our lot is full, you can park for free on Clover St.)

Droplabs is a brief walk from the Main St. / Lamar St. stop on the the Metro Local 76 bus line. This is also the Lincoln Heights / Chinatown DASH stop.

To carpool or catch the Droplabs shuttle from Union Station, post below in the comments.

What to Bring

Just bring your laptop, your business cards or whatever else you need. You're also welcome to bring some light food, sodas or beers to share with others at the meetup.

Please note that our guest wireless network is limited to 1Mb per client, so bring your MiFi router or a phone you can tether with if for some reason you need a lot of bandwidth. Access to our high-speed network is included with a Droplabs membership.

About Downtown Los Angeles Drupal

The Downtown Los Angeles Drupal group regularly meets in and around Downtown Los Angeles, California. We organize a large number of weekly and monthly events on various Drupal topics, including the general Downtown Los Angeles Drupal meetup that has been meeting regularly each month since early 2010.

The Downtown area is the most active area for Drupal in the Greater Los Angeles Area and has seen hundreds of Drupal events, including job fairs, meetups and workshops, study group meetings, conferences about design and theming, paid trainings, FREE tutoring sessions from Drupal professionals and barn raisings to benefit non-profits and members of our community here in and around Downtown Los Angeles.

Attending Drupal events in and around Downtown Los Angeles is one of the best ways to meet and talk with other Drupaleros and we encourage you to attend as many meetings and special events as you'd like. Whether it's to find solutions to problems you've been having, sharing something you've learned or just meeting interesting like-minded people, the Downtown Los Angeles Drupal events are an essential resource for Drupal professionals and hobbyists alike.

If you aren't already a member of Downtown Los Angeles Drupal, it's easy to join our community. Our community calendar is on our "Events" tab on our home page at http://groups.drupal.org/dtla

The Downtown Los Angeles Drupal group proudly participates in the California Drupal Travelers Program and can host businesses and community members who are visiting the area. Inquire within by contacting any of the Downtown Los Angeles Drupal organizers.