The current state of Drupal in Victoria

Hello Jaypan (CC to Victoria-Drupal-User-Group-list@meetup.com)

We had a Meetup group in Victoria which existed for a number of years before I joined as a Drupal newbie in 2012. About 16 to 20 of us would gather once a month from beginners like me to a core of high end developers. I found it very enjoyable, educational and fascinating. However, even though I stayed involved for a number of years and gained in knowledge I never got beyond building a couple of sites in Drupal 7 that, for non-Drupal reasons, never got to the point of being posted live.

Unfortunately the Meetup Group didn't last. A year or so after I joined some of the key developers ended up moving to large Drupal oriented companies in the states. Another factor was that we had to change venues from one that worked to a series of others that varied in their compatibility with us and members, particularly developers, started to drift away. There were also, no doubt, other reasons for the lower attendance levels which in turn discouraged still others from attending.

For a while we hung on with perhaps 3 to 6 of us with mid-level to minimal skills hoping it would revive. After that there were 2 or 3 of us for a while. Then for a substantial period I kept a series of meetups happening even though there were many times when I was the only one attending. New people would periodically show up to check us out and, whether it there was one or three of us there, the the low turn-out and lack of high end Drupalistas resulted in few second visits. This went on with a couple of periods of a few months each where the energy of the meeting increased substantially enough to give hope that they would fully revive but they didn't last more than a few months each.

That whole process from the change of venues and fading away of developers and other members, to my pulling the plug on the last series of scheduled meetups as a co-organizer, lasted from about 2013 to 2019. The last two series scheduled were each hosted by a capable and respected developer trying to breath some life back into it all but even they couldn't draw enough attendees (beyond me) to revive the group.

If you feel the urge to contact me for more details you are welcome to call me at 250-920-4160 (9 to 9 daily). but the above pretty much covers the essence of it from my perspective. I have names and contact info for some Victoria Drupalistas, and of some Drupal oriented organizations, in my records that might be of help to you in making connections. I suspect however that many of them will have received your message below the same as I did.

It is entirely possible that those who are professionally active in the area have kept communications channels open between themselves but I was never more than a hobbyist (though I did have higher hopes at times).

Good luck with finding Drupal compatriots.

Drupal, be and do in joy and health

Bill Hanson

@BillHanson - Thanks for the background. Your story somewhat mirrors the Sydney Drupal User's group, and I suspect a lot of user groups around the world. I'm a huge D8-D9 fan, but the reality is that in the improvements to an enterprise level platform, it lost a lot of the small budget clients AND users, and community enthusiasm. I'm sorry to hear Victoria fell victim to that, but hopefully/maybe some users will pipe up, and now with covid starting to be managed (and remote working on the rise), we can see if there is new enthusiasm. And even if not:

@Dale - thanks. I actually attended a meetup and a coffee shop last year, before the pandemic, but then pandemic life hit, I spent a year living in various places in BC...

I'm actually already a member of the Vancouver Slack channel, and I participate occasionally. And I intend to make the trip over to the mainland at some point as well. That said, the strait is a physical and financial barrier, so it will be harder to make it over for meetups. Though I likely will, once I feel comfortable (covid) and meetups are going again.

Thanks for the responses guys!

Would it be worthwhile setting up a virtual meeting? It’s super easy to attend, no worries about finding a location or social distancing, and it’s really easy for each member to screenshare and work on problems or showcase their work.