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KarenS's picture

Welcome! I'm KarenS and I maintain a few Drupal modules, like CCK, Date, and Calendar. I'm hoping to find other Drupallers in the Central Illinois area who'd like to get together from time to time to talk Drupal. We have lots of universities in this region, so it would be great to get them involved and help develop more Drupal developers. I also hope we can put together some public events to introduce people to Drupal. If you're interested, join the group and post some info about yourself, where you live, and any ideas you have for meeting topics, places, and times.

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Hi Karen, I'd be interested

notarealperson's picture

Hi Karen,

I'd be interested helping organize a larger Chicago meet up. I think there's a critical mass of Drupal users up here that could make it happen. I'll contact some people and see if we can get the ball rolling and post over in the Chicago group.

Take care,

Dan

downstaters

JimShady's picture

As a Springfield native that went to college in Peoria, lived in Chambana and Bloomington, and now lives in Chicago - I think this would be a great idea :)

The Chicago meetups have been "waiting list only" for a while now - I couldn't even get into the last one. I'm going to talk to the organizer about moving it somewhere else with more space - although having meetings like this in November and December can be a scheduling nightmare anyway.

In the meantime, if there's support for a downstate Drupal meetup, I'd be interested in attending.

Jim, Chicago Technology Co-operative
www.chicagotech.org

Jim, Chicago Technology Co-operative
www.chicagotech.org

I'm an ex-champaign resident

zirafa's picture

I'm an ex-champaign resident and graduate of UIUC - I may know some people down there that would be interested in this stuff. In particular I remember there being some CS groups on campus interested in Drupal. But anyway, considering the universities and resources around this area, this group should definitely happen!

I sent an email to the IT

KarenS's picture

I sent an email to the IT departments of several of the universities asking them if there are any staff or students who might be interested, but I don't know any of them personally, so if you do that might carry more weight :)

I just sent the email out and already have a reply from Illinois State that they are going to circulate info to their graduate students.

Hello from Peoria!

bmcmurray's picture

Hey Karen,

I'm a part-time instructor in the Multimedia Program at Bradley University (where Drupal has a pretty good stronghold thanks in large part to the effort of kreynen getting the college sites running on it and introducing me to it when he was in town) and I also work full-time as a web developer using Drupal as often as I can for client projects. I think it'd be awesome to have a meetup for area Drupalers!

Brian McMurray

B.McMurray

When??

KarenS's picture

We have some interest, so let's get something on the calendar. Does anyone have or know of a facility we could meet at that has wifi, at a minimum, and hopefully a computer projector? If so, when could it be made available?

Greetings from C-U!

HorsePunchKid's picture

Howdy, all. I'm a Drupaler in Champaign-Urbana and a UIUC employee. There is a campus-wide webmasters list that I'm subscribed to on which Drupal has come up a couple of times recently. I don't know of any campus units using Drupal, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are at least a few. A post to the webmaster list about this group (which I myself just discovered) might bring some more interest in a meetup.

Cheers,

-- Steven N. Severinghaus sns@severinghaus.org

-- Steven N. Severinghaus <sns@severinghaus.org>

Can you post something to

KarenS's picture

Can you post something to that list then? Thanks!

Facility

perlmonger's picture

I know the Lincoln Public Library (main branch in Springfield) has three different rooms that can be reserved. There is an LCD projector that can also be reserved. I have no idea about wifi though. The library obviously has internet access but I don't know about the capabilities of the meeting rooms. The rooms are free to use though. I think UIS would be a good spot if we can get a room there. It would have the added benefit of being near a large group of potential users.

I've been making some phone

KarenS's picture

I've been making some phone calls to see what is available in the way of rooms with wifi and a computer projector and haven't gotten very far. We really need those kind of facilities more for a meeting where we want to make formal presentations, and we may not be to that point yet anyway.

Instead, we could start out with a meeting in a place with food and wifi, like a Panera. It sounds like we have representation all over the place, and Bloomington is pretty central, so one idea would be meetup in Bloomington at the Veteran's Parkway Panera (on the south side of town near State Farm South), around 6pm. Just to pick a date out of a hat, Monday the 19th or Monday the 26th.

Would either of those work for anyone else?

I'm also OK with meeting in Springfield, or anywhere else we have a group of users. In fact I think we could and should rotate around between Bloomington, Champaign, Springfield, and Peoria to make it easy for as many people as possible.

Interest from Champaign

johnbarclay's picture

I code for the College of Education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I've been working with Drupal for several months and am interested in the group. We have plenty of rooms with projectors, wifi, etc so we could host from time to time. Rotating is best to build the group up.

John Barclay

How about this then... I'll

KarenS's picture

How about this then...

I'll take charge of a meeting in Bloomington in November, as noted above. I'll go with the 26th to give people enough time to plan.

sbatty, can you pick a date and a place in Springfield for December?

Bmcmurray, can pick a date and place in Peoria in January? You'll want to avoid the weekend of DrupalCamp Wisconsin in case anyone wants to go there (as I do).

johnbarclay or HorsePunchKid, could you arrange a date and place in Champaign in February?

As soon as we come up with dates and places, let's get them on the calendar and try to circulate the info to anyone who might be interested.

Meet in Normal, See CCK 6.x

KarenS's picture

I just scored a coup at got the use of the brand new Bank of Illinois community room in Normal. It's on the top floor of the bank with an awesome view of the city. We'll have free wifi and a computer projector available.

Now that we have a projector, we could actually do a program, so I'll do an overview of the changes coming in CCK 6.x.

I had to change to the date it was available, Thursday the 29th.

This is an amazing facility, I can't believe it was available. It will be really embarrassing if no one shows up, so I hope several of you can make it :-)

I'll have to bring in sandwiches or something for food, so, if at all possible, please post on the event page (http://groups.drupal.org/node/7103) to give me some idea of how many are coming.

Thursdays don't work :(

bmcmurray's picture

Unfortunately, Thursdays don't work for me in the evenings because I teach a course at Bradley at 6:30pm. Guess I'll have to miss our first meet-up, sorry all.

B.McMurray

B.McMurray

Sorry to hear that

KarenS's picture

Sorry to hear that :(

If anyone else has days that absolutely won't work, post something here and we can try to avoid them in the future.

February In Champaign .. presenter or topic needed

johnbarclay's picture

We are up for hosting in Champaign in February. A few local users will help figure out a date and location.

But we don't have an idea for a topic or a presenter. Any thoughts or volunteers? The presenter doesn't have to be from Champaign.

John Barclay

Great! Let's try to keep the

KarenS's picture

Great! Let's try to keep the momentum going. Get a date set up and posted, we can announce a topic at a later time, but let's get it on the g.d.o calendar. It's good to meet as often as we can since we'll catch different people with different dates and places.

I'm unavailable from Feb 24th on, otherwise I'll try to be there.

Central Illinois DUG

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