WordPress Dev and ToolBox Groups

Normally James and I proof-read before posting, but since this has been a hot topic, I wanted to make this announcement.

Rest assured, we are following all of your comments about the need for a WordPress Dev meetup group.  Although there is one established, they’ve only had 1 meetup and that was last year.  James and I have been talking about keeping this entire group intact (yes all 400+ members).  But there are a few things that need to happen before we can branch off Dev (development) and ToolBox (my terminology for tips, tricks, plugins, themes, without the code):

1. We need Microsoft’s approval.  One of the biggest problems is attendance.  Like we mentioned earlier, people RSVP but an average of 60% of those who responded with “Yes” show up.  We need a larger and a more accurate head count to show the need for bigger rooms.
2. Once we have a regular attendance with bigger rooms, we do plan on having 1 meetup per month but have 2 tracks during that time.  We envision the core networking of everyone for the first 15 minutes with a group gathering for housekeeping messages, updates and AOB.  We would then branch off into separate rooms (1 for Dev (coding) and 1 for ToolBox (non-coding)).
3. If 1 & 2 were to happen, we would then need people to step up and volunteer to present.  We want fresh presentations, new topics and speakers.  As much as we would like to fall back on our “core speakers,” we need to expand and have people volunteer to give demos, show code or present.
4. The last issue is video recording.  I’ve been recording the Boston WordPress Meetups since last year and I was in charge of A/V for WordCamp Boston.  But my resources are limited.  I have 1 camera and only so much time during the day (my full-time job is not in the computing or A/V genre).  If anyone has a camcorder (not a Flip as nice as they are) that they are willing to donate once a month and that I can borrow to rip videos and edit, it would help us and the entire Meetup tremendously.

James and I are already talking about doing dual tracks for May (we have 2 topics already) and we are just waiting for Microsoft to respond about room availability before we can put everything into motion.  But there will be times where we will combine the 2 sections for a more broad topic (which we are trying to plan for in June).

Again, please use this site as a resource.  Make groups for Dev and ToolBox and people will join, interact and ask questions.  We would like to make everything public so that everyone can benefit.  We will keep the group up to date with information as soon as we receive it.

Thanks!