CDC - Minutes - 8 April 2015

It was a pleasant gathering at the premises of Unimity Solutions. We all wish to thank Shyamala and Unimity for making this possible. There were seven of us.

1. Uday Kumar, Unimity
2. Anthony Chidambaram, Unimity
3. Manoj K P, Unimity
4. Parameshwar Babu, Param Projects
5. Lakshminarasimhan, Axelerant
6. Hussain Abbas, Axelerant
7. Sridhar Pandurangiah, Sastra Technologies

After introducing ourselves, we set a broad course for the discussions.

Hussain began by explaining the activities of the Drupal Communities in Bangalore and was keen on having interactions between the Drupal Communities in Bangalore and Chennai. A Bangalore Drupal Community meetup is scheduled for 18th April 2015.

Hussain invited all members of the Chennai Drupal Community to attend the Drupal Camp scheduled for July in Bangalore.

Lakshminarasimhan shared his experiences in running a BootCamp for people keen on Drupal and was interested in taking the learning to the Colleges. Manoj recollected that Shymala had done a Campus session for Amity in Chennai. Parameshwar Babu shared his experiences in not finding enough people to roll out upgrades to contrib modules and felt that training people from the Colleges on Drupal is the right way. Sridhar shared his experiences in setting the syllabi for SRM University. Hussain felt that such diverse efforts should be converged and "Brand Ambassadors" should be identified for each College. The "Brand Ambassadors" will evangelise Drupal in the Colleges and in return will be eligible for certain benefits like attending Drupal Camps and Drupal Con.

Sridhar suggested that the Chennai Drupal Community work towards conducting a Drupal Camp in October - November 2015. There was unanimous consensus. Hussain shared his knowledge about conducting camps and said that the Camps are conducted once a year and though one has to pay a fee to attend a Drupal camp abroad, in India attendance is free. Lakshminarasimhan felt that having a Fee will ensure that a highly focussed set of people will attend the camp. A broad consensus emerged that initially the Chennai Drupal Community will organise free camps with the help of sponsors and will later change the format if necessary.

Hussain suggested that the Chennai Drupal Community regularise the meeting, like the Bangalore Drupal Community has it on every last Saturday of the month. The broad consensus was that the Chennai Drupal Community will meet on the 3rd Saturday of the month with the Venue being decided a week or so in advance.

Hussain suggested that we do a Video conference or Google Hangout between the Bangalore and Chennai Drupal Communities for some of the meetups.

Lakshminarasimhan suggested that we put up a website for the Chennai Drupal Community. Sridhar agreed to take it up and have one ready.

Hussain suggested that we arrive at an organisation structure for the Chennai Drupal Community so that the responsibilities are shared among the various members. Sridhar volunteered to take the responsibility for the campus outreach programmes of the the Chennai Drupal Community

Hussain informed the gathering that a group on #slack exists for the Drupal India community and he'll add people to the group if they are interested.

Hussain also informed the group that it will be very important to foster a sense of belonging with other Drupalistas in smaller cities and towns in South of India.

Hussian informed us that the Drupal Association is being registered and the modalities of the registration are being worked out among other members of the Drupal Community in India.

The meeting of the Chennai Drupal Community concluded at 8:00pm.