Re: [UG-ADMINS] New UG

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Hi Nigel, 

Great idea! A few things I've did at 010PHP (Rotterdam, Netherlands) in
the beginning that made me help grow the community fast: 

 	* Find out WHAT the community is expecting from the UG:

	* We held a "bootstrap"-meeting where people talked about their
expectations: is it PHP specific, or a code agnostic driven meetup? What
is the best fit for interval they would attend the meetup?
We also decided on the following three "core pillars", being: 
_We are not a resource pool for recruiters_
_Easily reachable: always in the center of Rotterdam_
_010PHP is for everybody_

 	* Find out HOW to reach your community. 

	* At the bootstrap we decided to host monthly meetups. Doing so, I
started asking how people found out we were actually hosting these
events. At that time we were using Facebook, Twitter and Meetup.com as
our main communication channels. When asked, people always responded
that they found us by Twitter, but mostly at Meetup.com. So we focused
on our Twitter account and dropped Facebook entirely.
We also made sure to announce the following meetup at the current
meetup, e.g. we announce the meetup for February at the January event.
	* We always encouraged people to ask there colleagues, friends and
relatives to join as well.

	* A online chatroom, like slack or IRC, also is very fun!

 	* Be a ORGANIZER!

 	* Plan, plan, and plan. Also, plan ahead. Last October I already
started planning for this year. Currently we are fully booked until
August. Asking speakers in time may trigger them to even create a
specific new talk for your event. They also tend to accept your invite
'cause they have not yet planned anything else. This, somehow, works for
finding locations as well.
 	* Make clear agreements with your contact at the location you are
hosting your meetup. For example: when 010PHP gets hosted at company X
than they may do their own presentation about themselves, for a max. of
10 minutes, prior to the main talk. So our agenda is 5 minutes welcome
speech from us, 10 minutes intro speech from company X, 45 ~ 50 minutes
main talk. 

This is just a few things I thought of when reading your email. I wish
you all the best of luck and hopefully you'll succeed in creating a nice
UG. 

Good luck!

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Kind regards,
Roberto Gardenier

Boyan Yordanov schreef op 2017-04-18 09:31:

> Hi Nigel,
> 
> I was in a similar position 6 months ago. It is, as James said, a great
> idea to start a UG in you town. The first time, and to be honest each time
> since, i was very scared that people won't show up and it will go nowhere.
> But we've grown a bit since then, started doing regular talks and partnered
> up with the local WP ug and even some companies started to take interest in
> the development of the community.
> 
> A very good advice I was given in the beginning was to start really small,
> just call several developers you already know, tell them to tell others and
> go out for a drink and talk about php for a couple of hours. Nothing formal
> and nothing to scare people off early on.
> 
> Also I found the php.ug slack and people on twitter using #phpug really
> welcoming and helpful, answering all my silly questions for the first
> meetings.
> 
> 7php has also written on the topic:
> http://7php.com/category/conferences-user-groups/phpusergroup-howto/
> 
> Good luck!
> And don't forget to have fun in the process!
> 
> Boyan
> 
> On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 10:13 AM Nigel James <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Thanks very much for your warm welcome.
> 
> i am still putting out feelers but I think there could be an opportunity
> here.
> 
> (Half of me is telling me I am crazy and pull out now - if nothing happens
> you will know that dude won!)
> 
> Thanks for the great links - great stuff)
> 
> Nigel
> 
> On 18 April 2017 at 15:47, James Titcumb <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Nigel,
> 
> That is indeed a great idea! :)
> 
> First up, some of the material on https://wiki.php.net/usergroups/handbook may be of use.
> 
> Also, make sure you get the UG registered on http://php.ug/ :)
> 
> Welcome to the UG-Admins list also!
> 
> Thanks
> James
> 
> On 18 April 2017 at 05:14, Nigel James <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> This morning I had the crazy idea of starting a UG in my town. Canberra,
> ACT, Australia
> 
> I have a few ideas but if there is wisdom from this group that would be
> great.
> 
> Thanks,
> Nigel James

--
Nigel James
----------------------------------
[email protected]
http://about.me/nigeljames
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