[group-organizers] Anyone interested in a Python Users Group?

[Stephen Waterbury]

John Szakmeister wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 9:59 AM, Stephen Waterbury
> <waterbug at pangalactic.us> wrote:
> [snip]
>> Hi John,
>>
>> You're free to start a new group, of course, but there is one
>> in your area: the BACON-PIG (Baltimore, Columbia, and Other
>> Northern DC suburbs Python Interest Group :).  The BACON-PIG is
>> newly formed, and had its first meeting on October 23 at the
>> Goddard Space Flight Center's Visitor Center in Greenbelt, MD.
>> Current plan is to have the next BACON-PIG meeting on January
>> 19th at the Visitor Center.  If you'd like to propose a
>> BACON-PIG meeting at the Howard County library, please feel
>> free to do so on the bacon-pig mailing list (see below) and
>> on python-announce (to see if new people might be interested).
> 
> I'm rather disappointed that I missed this.  I haven't been watching
> python-announce (which appears to be the only place this was
> announced).  Why not list it on the Python Users Group blog
> (http://python-groups.blogspot.com/) or in the Local User Groups area
> of the Python Wiki (http://wiki.python.org/moin/LocalUserGroups)?

Good idea!  I'll do that.  (I hadn't been aware of those locations.
I've been a Pythonista for many years but haven't kept up with
some of the newer venues. ;)

I would definitely recommend subscribing to python-announce --
it's relatively low-volume.  I thought everyone did!  :)
That's basically why I didn't look for other places to post.  ;)

>> The BACON-PIG site is here:
>>
>> http://pangalactic.us/bacon-pig
>>
>> Mailing list:
>>
>> https://pangalactic.us/mailman/listinfo/bacon-pig
> 
> I certainly don't want to step on toes... on the other hand, Greenbelt
> is right on the edge of how far I'm willing to go.  So I'm at a loss
> for what to do. :-(

Nothing you do will step on any toes -- not mine anyway!

> I'd love to actually attend a meeting though.  As
> far as hosting on of your meetups at Howard County Central Library,
> it's certainly possible... but you have to get on the schedule and
> it's currently 3 months out.

If you want to have Python group meetings in Columbia, we will
be drawing a lot of the same people anyway, so my idea was just to
go ahead and propose whatever meetings you want through any channel
you want, including the bacon-pig list, and you can lead them.
I don't consider BACON-PIG meetups to be "mine" or "ours" as opposed
to "yours" -- they're just people interested in Python.  (I
*certainly* will be happy to have anyone else lead a BACON-PIG
meeting!  That's definitely not an ego thing for me. :)  If you want
to have meetings in Columbia, go ahead propose that, and propose them
for any date you like -- it doesn't have to be on the schedule we
came up with on the bacon-pig list, especially if you have new
people who also prefer the Columbia location.

> Which is why I started prodding around.
> By the time the holidays are all done, the time would be here.  I've
> been getting some responses through several other forums, so I'll poke
> around and see if those guys are willing to go to Greenbelt at all.
> I'm certain I'll be in touch in the not to distant future.

I see that we seem to have a lot of forums that don't inter-communicate
... a typical internet-age "problem".  I only see it as a problem in
that each meeting could have more people if it were more widely
known among local pythonistas.

Please feel free to start a group of your own with its own name, etc.
if you want to!  Even then you are still welcome to use the bacon-pig
list either as your group's list or at least for meeting coordination
discussions, since I'm sure many bacon-pig folks (including myself)
would be interested in Python meetings in Columbia -- that's why
we called it the Baltimore, Annapolis, Columbia, and Other Northern
blah blah blah.  (I see I forgot about the Annapolis part last time. ;)

Cheers,
Steve