[group-organizers] Mass Add

Tue Apr 14 20:05:31 CEST 2015

Hey all -

I'm Simeon Franklin. I co-organize the San Francisco Python Meetup with
Grace Law and Hy Carrel. Which segues into the "how to grow" story:

If you can meet consistently, provide interesting talks, and make sure
there is free food and beverages you will accumulate a community of folks
who keep coming back. But consistency is really hard on the solo organizer.
Its a lot of work between speaker recruitment, sponsor/host recruitment,
mailing list management, plus the once a month commitment of time for the
event itself.

Grace Law used to run SF Python Meetup herself with great success until she
had a skiing accident and couldn't organize for a bit. We had no meetups
for 9 months! Hy and I both volunteered about the same time to help out and
gradually Grace trusted us with more organizing duties. Now we each work
about equally aside from speaker recruitment where Grace still takes the
lead.

The great thing about this is that in any given month only two of us do
much work. Life happens and people travel, get sick, have career shifts or
whatever. Our leadership group has had all that but we keep rolling with 2
events in an average month and between 125 and 250 people at each event.

Based on experience I don't think a meetup is long term sustainable if it
rests solely on the efforts of a single person...

The other thing I'd observe about our growth is that the "normal" Meetup
format (formal talks) makes it really difficult to serve the whole
community. Long beginner talks likely bore the software professionals but
long advanced talks discourage the beginners.

I've personally deeply enjoyed adding a "Project Night" aimed at welcoming
new people into our community and the local Pythonistas have made this an
easy night - every month we have volunteer mentors willing to answer
questions and at least one or two volunteers to teach tutorial style
sessions. We still have a "Talks Night" but the second event each month has
really helped with the diversity of our community along several axes.

- regards
Simeon

On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:35 AM, Brian Ray <brianhray at gmail.com> wrote:

> Barb:
>
> Would you mind introducing or forwarding this list info to Sara so she can
> join.
>
> Also I know Peter Wang does a lot of stuff in Austin. CC'd (Peter, you may
> want to join this list if not on already, all these introductions are
> amazing).
>
> Cheers, Brian
>
> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 11:25 AM, Barbara Shaurette <
> barbara.shaurette at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Barbara Shaurette here - thanks for the add. I did found the PyLadies
> > chapter in Austin, but I don't organize it anymore - for that you want
> Sara
> > Safavi.
> >
> > I do teach the Young Coders classes at PyCon (and some smaller
> > conferences), along with the occasional one-off beginner class. It looks
> > like I'll be involved with Django Girls (at least for DjangoCon here in
> > Austin this year). Young Coders will be back at PyCon 2016, and I'm
> > developing an intermediate curriculum to go along with it for next year.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:51 AM, Terry Peppers <peppers at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > Terry Peppers. I help run the Testing in Python mailing list and have
> in
> > > the past run the Testing in Python Birds of a Feather, also known as
> TiP
> > > BoF @ PyCon. While TiP BoF was absent @ Pycon 2014 and PyCon 2015,
> > there's
> > > a high likelihood of it's reemergence at PyCon next year, but with a
> > format
> > > change.
> > >
> > > TiP BoF started in 2008 as a group of 20 and ballooned to a group of
> 400
> > @
> > > PyCon 2013 in Santa Clara. Scale is a challenge.
> > >
> > > - t.
> > >
> > > On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:10 AM, Randy Syring <randy at thesyrings.us>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Randy Syring.  I founded DerbPy and run it along with help from the
> > guys
> > > > from Level 12 (my company).  We are a couple hours south of IndyPy in
> > the
> > > > Louisville area.
> > > >
> > > > http://www.meetup.com/derbypy/
> > > >
> > > > *Randy Syring*
> > > > Husband | Father | Redeemed Sinner
> > > >
> > > > /"For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world
> > > > and forfeit his soul?" (Mark 8:36 ESV)/
> > > >
> > > > On 04/14/2015 10:23 AM, Clayton Parker wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Hellooooo, my name is Clayton Parker and I'm the co-organizer of
> > IndyPy,
> > > >> the Indianapolis Python User Group.
> > > >>
> > > >> We are now in our 8th year and have been growing stronger every
> year!
> > > >>
> > > >> Clayton
> > > >>
> > > >
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> > --
> >
> > http://www.mechanicalgirl.com
> > @bshaurette, @PyLadiesATX
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>
> --
> Brian Ray
> @brianray
> (773) 669-7717
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