Ventura Meetup

Posted by generalconsensus on March 21, 2013 at 8:55pm

Hello Fellow Ventura Drupallers,

I've been very interested to help host an event for Drupal in our area for some time. I can see that this area has not seen much in the way of new events in a while so I wanted to see if there was interested in meeting for a simple get together here in April. I know of a few venues that might potentially want to sponsor our event but it all comes down to the response. I was thinking of having some lightning talks, perhaps some one-on-one Drupal help, or featured talks.

I don't mind giving a talk on Vagrant, or Behat if folks want but I would like to hear more about how we can restart AND invigorate this community.

Thanks!
General.Consensus

Comments

Glad to hear somebody is

Posted by fejn on March 21, 2013 at 9:53pm

Glad to hear somebody is thinking about this!
I don't live in Ventura, but know a number of people in the area who might be interested, so keep up the good work & I'll try to stir up some interest.

Jeff Nutting

Thanks for posting this, Dan!

Posted by christefano on March 21, 2013 at 10:34pm

Thanks for posting this, Dan! I'm excited to see Ventura Drupal being revived after its long hiatus. When the time comes, hit me up for any help you need regarding promotion, raffle prizes, etc.

Excitement

Posted by generalconsensus on March 22, 2013 at 2:40am

Jeff/Chriso,

Excited to see you guys want to stir the pot. I'm looking into some different venues here in the area. In the meantime I'll try to reach out more the colleges in the area to see if students working on their degrees would like more exposure to Drupal. In the meantime tell your friends, tell everybody.

Dan

VCC

Posted by fejn on March 22, 2013 at 3:11am

I know some kids at VCC that might be interested; you might want to check Foothill Technology High School (across from VCC) out too as 'outreach' possibilities.

I don't know much of anything about possibilities in the Oxnard area (other than where they are)

Finally!

Posted by elblufer on March 23, 2013 at 6:30am

I've been waiting for a Ventura County meetup. I'd love to go. Unfortunately, I don't know any other drupal users in the area, but, I'd be happy for that to change.

I think there are lots of

Posted by fejn on March 23, 2013 at 10:28pm

I think there are lots of others in your boat. the only way we are going to 'fix it' is to see what we can do to bring them out of the woodwork -- the change might prove to be self perpetuating/self-sustaining.

Geographically desirable

Posted by mfuller526 on March 24, 2013 at 2:38am

I'm a Drupal newbie in Agoura Hills. Works for me.

I'm in Ventura

Posted by rublev_green on March 24, 2013 at 3:02am

and would like to participate

Dan, per our phone call I

Posted by christefano on March 24, 2013 at 9:48am

Dan, per our phone call I followed up with a coworking space I recently learned of that's in Ojai. They're happy to host a meetup. What do you think?

spacemonkeycreative
http://spacemonkeycreative.com/

I'm sure that would be an

Posted by fejn on March 24, 2013 at 7:04pm

I'm sure that would be an interesting place to have a meeting, but for a first Ventura meetup, I think the transport difficulties of getting to Ojai might really cut the number of people who come out (especially those w/o cars or limited transportation. If you could set up a meeting for people to get more familiar with the Drupal community, I doubt that you'd have trouble getting people to Ojai in the long run, though.

Agreed

Posted by elblufer on March 24, 2013 at 7:21pm

I have to agree with this. Being in Moorpark, Ojai is an hour away from me.

Closest to most people

Posted by pcher1bw on March 24, 2013 at 7:36pm

The closet city to the center of the most populated areas is either Oxnard or Camarillo. Does anyone know if there is a student union building at CSU Channel Islands and what it would take to use it. Also if there are any CSUCI students that want to form a group it might help Ventura County Drupal.

Paul Chernick
CEO
Chernick Consulting
(310) 569-2517

Oxnard, Camarillo

Posted by generalconsensus on March 24, 2013 at 8:11pm

I definitely would love to see us get together in the Oxnard, or Camarillo area. I'll try reaching out to CSUCI on Monday to get more information on possible student union rooms, or the CSUCI library. I work nearby so I can easily drop by and file any forms after work tomorrow. Is there anyone that would like to give a presentation?

Meeting location for Ox Cam Ven

Posted by studio500 on March 25, 2013 at 7:07pm

Actually, I am attempting to arrange a location in Ventura. I should have more information by the end of the week. We expect to be building out a studio for Internet TV so internet connections should be pretty good. My associate and I are also entertaining the idea of a tech show.

Thanks for responding to this issue. I met someone at the SCALE convention that stated their was interest in this area.

You can call 516.669.0570

Thanks for posting this, and

Posted by christefano on March 25, 2013 at 7:31pm

Thanks for posting this, and for the quick phone chat just now!

I just sent you an email with my contact info and the contact info for Dan, who recently joined Ventura Drupal as a co-organizer.

I'm glad to announce that

Posted by christefano on March 26, 2013 at 10:02pm

I'm glad to announce that Bill at Pixelgate is happy to host us at his facility in Westlake Village. He's also the newest member to Ventura Drupal. Welcome, Bill!

Pixelgate is a private hosting facility with focuses on high availability servers and high touch customer service. I was introduced by a mutual connection in the larger Drupal community, and I'm grateful to Bill for indulging me yesterday for a quick tour and having the time and interest to get to know us and the Ventura Drupal community.

In addition to talking about Drupal, how it compares to Joomla and WordPress, and how various meetups in Southern California are structured, a big highlight for me was talking shop for at least an hour about Drupal security, high availability scenarios, and technologies like MFS and DRBD.

We'll have a conference room with enough space for about 12-15 people. As the group grows, we can look for additional space or new venues but I think this will be a great venue for us while we get on our feet — especially since Westlake Village is almost exactly a half-way point between Camarillo and the West Valley (and just 10 minutes from you, Elliott!), which are two tremendously under-served areas when it comes to Drupal. It's also a quick hop away from numerous venues for an afterparty following our meetup.

At this point we're working on finding the right time to meet. As far as scheduling goes, I want to give priority to our venue and venue coordinators so that our meetups aren't disruptive to their day-to-day affairs. Stay tuned!

edit: fixing link to DRBD at http://www.drbd.org

Hey, I got a shout out!

Posted by elblufer on March 26, 2013 at 9:36pm

Looking forward to meeting other members of the Ventura County Drupal community.

Would like to participate...

Posted by sbavkar on March 28, 2013 at 5:43pm

Hi,

I live in Ventura and have worked with Drupal 7 and would like to participate(if there is space, otherwise will wait for the next meeting).

Thank you!

Looking forward to helping out

Posted by wkern on March 28, 2013 at 10:03pm

Thanks for the intro. I am happy to help out. We actually have a few rooms available if we need to break out sessions, but for now the goal is just to get things going.

Everything sounds good so

Posted by fejn on March 29, 2013 at 12:41am

Everything sounds good so far; the only thing I don't know now is WHEN it is going to be. Anybody???

Meeting Date

Posted by wkern on March 29, 2013 at 12:50am

Mid-May on a Wednesday for that actual meetin is being discussed. Christefano is coordinating that along with a possible meet-up at a local restaurant in April

Sounds good!

Posted by fejn on March 29, 2013 at 1:14am

~ a week's lead time will give me a little more lead to 'rabble-rouse' around the area :D

Jeff

Due to the unusually

Posted by christefano on March 29, 2013 at 8:40pm

Due to the unusually excessive spam on this thread, I'd like to point everyone to http://groups.drupal.org/node/266598, where you can request "spam fighter" privileges. Anyone with that role will see "mark as spam" links on comments and user accounts throughout the site. Thanks for your help.

Hi all, I'm excited to

Posted by christefano on April 4, 2013 at 4:04am

Hi all, I'm excited to announce that we're kicking off our new series of meetups this month on Wednesday, April 24th!

http://groups.drupal.org/node/292058

Many thanks to Bill at Pixelgate for recommending BJ's. I haven't been to this BJ's yet but I hear they have an outdoor patio and Bill has been kind enough to reserve it for us.

It also turns out that BJ's uses Drupal to run their website:

http://www.bjsrestaurants.com/locations/ca/westlake-village

Nice

Posted by ccthompson on April 4, 2013 at 4:09am

Looking forward to this event since it is closer to my neck of the woods!

Chris Cabrera Thompson
Web Services
Digital Initiatives and Information Technology
University Of California, Los Angeles
22484 Charles E. Young Research Library
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575
Voice: 310.206.6638

May 15th Drupal Meetup

Posted by generalconsensus on May 6, 2013 at 5:55pm

Just a reminder that the first Ventura County Drupal meetup is happening this May 15th in Westlake Village. We have a great location thanks to the folks at Pixelgate studios and one spot left for a presenter. If you are interested and you would like to join please RSVP here. If you are interested in presenting please drop us a line here

I am stoked to be able to help kickstart this new Drupal community with you. Looking forward to your input!

Filedepot

Posted by fejn on May 6, 2013 at 6:06pm

I'd like to do a presentation on the Filedepot module. It gives you a way to manage documents on your site.