+1 for the IRL meetings. It's a lot easier to discuss (and dream) if you can see each other.<br><br>The first meeting could be used to discuss the first 'workshop'...<br><br>kr,<br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 2/26/08, <b class="gmail_sendername">Peter Vanbroekhoven</b> <<a href="mailto:peter@xaop.com">peter@xaop.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Hi all,<br> <br> The devroom at FOSDEM was quite successful, so cheers on that. After<br> FOSDEM we had 15-20 more subscribers to brug-talk than before FOSDEM, so<br> some people already took the bait. So all's well. But...<br>
<br> It isn't the time to sit still. We should use the momentum we've built<br> to keep going. But enough motivational talk...<br> <br> First off, there has been a gap of almost 5 months between the first<br> BRUG meeting and the FOSDEM devroom. I'm probably not alone in thinking<br>
that this is a bit too much. I'm not saying that we should have an event<br> like FOSDEM every month, but I still think we should meet more often.<br> The way I see it now, we could discern the following categories of meet-ups:<br>
<br> * Regular BRUG get-together: a monthly meeting in a cafe or so where we<br> can talk about Ruby, life, anything we want. No pressure to attend each<br> time, no pressure on topics, just getting together and socialize. This<br>
should be low overhead, i.e., we pick a date and come who can/wants to come.<br> * More formal BRUG meetings: these could be anything, from hackatons to<br> semi-formal presentations. I wouldn't put the pressure on this one<br>
either, but rather do this when it arises. So if someone feels like<br> giving a presentation, we could organize a meeting. If someone wants to<br> kick off a new project and is looking for a few fellow developers to<br>
help, we could organize a coding session. I'm sure at some point we all<br> have thought about implementing a small utility, a Ruby lib or a Rails<br> plugin. These coding sessions are great to kick such a project into<br>
gear; it's surprising what a few motivated programmer's can put together<br> in a few hours. It's how Rubygems got started :-)<br> * Formal seminars: I was thinking along the lines of some of the events<br> organized by SAI, i.e., <a href="http://www.sai.be/nl/eventdetail.aspx?ev_id=153">http://www.sai.be/nl/eventdetail.aspx?ev_id=153</a><br>
. We could advertise this to companies and such. This could be an<br> important vehicle in promoting Ruby in Belgium. Many companies see Ruby<br> as a hype and are thus hesitant to jump on the bandwagon out of fear of<br>
investing in a fad that will be over before they got back what they<br> invested in it. We should convince them that it is worth it. Once we get<br> going, we could even invite prominent speakers (although then we'll need<br>
to charge for it probably).<br> * The big guns: once we get going, we can organize bigger events like<br> half/one-day conferences. This one is still way off in the future, but<br> it is something to keep an eye on. We already did this in the form of<br>
FOSDEM, but I was thinking about something stand-alone, something we<br> advertise to companies.<br> * BRUG-admin meetings: although we can have discussions online, nothing<br> beats a real-life meeting where you can brainstorm on important<br>
issue/decisions.<br> <br> My feeling tells me that the first and last type of meeting could very<br> well turn out to end up the same. It's likely to be the hardcore group.<br> But anyway, it would be nice if we could get these regular meet-ups<br>
going. Because we don't need any infrastructure for it, we can easily<br> vary the location.<br> <br> Another important thing is to build a decent website. Currently, we have<br> some information online, but it's certainly not sufficient. Instiki was<br>
great to quickly get some information online, but it is certainly not a<br> durable solution. I think we need to brainstorm on what we will need to<br> build a decent website. I would like to organize a BRUG-admin meeting<br>
for this in 2 or 3 weeks time. And then have the first regular BRUG<br> meeting a few weeks after that, just to start going. Sound reasonable?<br> <br> Peter<br> _______________________________________________<br> Brug-admin mailing list<br>
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<br>-- <br>Tom Klaasen<br>10to1<br>+32 475 28 17 62<br><a href="http://www.10to1.be">http://www.10to1.be</a>