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I am the manager of the Joomla! User Group New England.
We had our first meeting in March 2008, and we've grown from a mailing
list of 2 (Sam and me) to almost 100 people in our first year. So, how did we do it?
The Mechanics 1. Make sure there's no existing Joomla User Group for your region. Chances are, there isn't. 2. Read the FAQ.
Note that you will need a primary and secondary contact for your group,
plus a group email address. You can't be a virtual group. You must have
meetings. (See below about meetings.) 3. Fill out the form. That was easy. Now, some of the harder things to worry about. Meeting Flavor Do
you want a laid back, informal meeting? Do you want a more structured
meeting? Thinking about flavor will help you determine times and places. If
you want nothing structured or formal at all, maybe you're thinking
about a lunch or a beer or coffee or whatever. Think about a bunch of
developers meeting in a bar for beer -- that's probably better suited
for 6 PM than 9 AM. A bunch of developers could meet at a coffee shop
at 9 AM. Keep in mind that "informal" often means that someone has to
walk into this situation, potentially knowing no one, and introduce
themselves around -- a very uncomfortable situation for most geeks I
know. So think about a way that you might help we that are socially
awkward like that. If you want a more formalized feeling, you're
not meeting in a bar or a restaurant or coffee shop. You're meeting at
a company that will donate a meeting room, or a local college or
university, a training center, or some other formalized meeting space,
preferably with a projector for a laptop. You might have a "real"
agenda, i.e. things to cover in fixed periods of time. You might have
guest speakers plus some generalized discussion. These types of
meetings can happen anytime of the day or night, but in general, an
evening meeting feels a little more laid back than a daytime meeting.
It may be possible to get a company meeting room between 9 AM and 5 PM,
but a university room might be more likely to be available at 6 PM. Once you pick a flavor, think about times and places. Meeting Time Meeting
times are tricky things. If you hold meetings during the day, you'll
get complaints from people who want to come, but their boss won't give
them time off and a night meeting would be better. If you hold them at
night, you'll get complaints about how childcare and evening activities
are issues, and you should really hold meetings during the day. So,
pick what works for you, as a meeting manager, as you should attend
EVERY meeting unless you have a darn good reason why you can't (you're
on your deathbed or you're at a Joomla conference might be the rare
excuses). Lunch meetings are good if they're held somewhere where
people can eat. Meetings first thing in the morning or last thing in
the day are good too, so people go to work late/early. Evening meetings
have a different, more casual and relaxed dynamic typically. The
meeting time should be the same EVERY MONTH. You should have meetings
like clockwork. Don't skip, don't cancel, unless you ABSOLUTELY must do
so, otherwise your group feels "unreliable". Meeting Place Where
you meet also determines the type of meeting you have. Some user groups
are a bunch of developers meeting for a beer in a bar somewhere. Others
are more formal, rigid presentations with projectors and Powerpoint. Be
aware if you're running a "meet in the bar" type of user group, you
want people to get more out of this than just being a drinking club of
some kind. You want to think about how to avoid a "pick up" type of
dynamic, where people are hitting on each other. Personally, I
wouldn't be too keen in going to a bar user group if I thought I was
getting Joomla help, but all I got was geeks drooling all over me.
Ick. A more formal dynamic gives a more professional feel to
things, but some may be turned off by powerpoint and projectors. Others
may not feeling like coming because X is being covered this time, and
you really want to hear about Y. Meeting Agenda After
a few meetings, you might get a regular agenda of some kind in place.
However, you should absolutely make sure you have an agenda for the
first meeting. If the meeting wanders aimlessly, some people will be
turned off and won't return. Meeting Attention-Getters You
should absolutely have food at every meeting. Bake cookies and bring
them with you. Ask your membership to bring something. Get local
sponsors to pay for pizza. It's silly that food pulls people in, but
it does. And give stuff away!!! There are a ton of book
companies out there who want to support user groups and will provide
you with the occasional free book or regular free books. Check out
O'Reilly, PeachPit, Packt, Pearson, and Wiley, to name a few. Put a
logo linking to them on your website. Some of these also offer UG
discounts, like 35% off all books purchased at their website. Some
will provide really outrageous giveaways. For example, Lynda.com will
give the user group manager a free premium subscriber account (worth
$375/year). This is so you can rant about how fabulous Lynda.com is,
and so you can show good movies at your UG meetings. Also contact
some of the Joomla-specific template companies, extension developers,
etc about donating a copy of something to raffle off or use on your own
UG website. They're generally very supportive. You can raffle
these goodies off at your UG meeting, or you can REWARD those members
who help you with the occasional free book or goodie. Getting Members, Running the Meeting, and More I'll talk more tomorrow about these topics. This article was first published on Joomla4Web.
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