Steerers - Official Vote - Respond ASAP by tonight if possible (it's less than one week from our first new meeting time).

[Mike Sullivan]

Fellow Steerers,
  Based on the input (in order of first response) from Curt, Craig, Jeff, John, Mark and myself, it seems like we have a consensus among the steering committee to merge meetings / stay as one group.  Since this is a significant change for the group, I am proposing an official vote (Yes / No).

  Respond to this e-mail with "Yes" to change the meeting location and time to the 2nd Monday of each month at the RGA building (1350 Timberlake Manor)

  Respond "No" if you want to keep 2 separate meetings with separate user groups, etc.


         To re-iterate the concepts from the last posting, here is a summary of why we want to change the group:

1:  Mark has been asking us to look for another place to host our meetings for some time now.
             Jeff works at RGA, so he was able to secure a meeting room there, but only on Mondays.

2:  The 2nd Monday of the month seemed to be one of the few days in the month that didn't already
             have another user group meeting scheduled.

3:  We've been having trouble getting the critical mass of users lately to keep good topics going from
             one month to the next; the new focus & advertising should help that out

 

         Here's a summary of new areas for the steering committee to focus on:

1:  Use the same user group addresses, steering committee members

2:  Focus on Ruby on Rails to capitalize on the current community interest in the topic.

    Re-brand and advertise in new ways to gather the rails community interest.
                     (topical code or experience based presentations to attract larger groups, consulting company swag/food,
                      blog and/or other web presence to make people want to come participate / contribute / learn from us)

3:  Make the format several shorter presentations per meeting, to allow multiple speakers & topics each meeting (including Ruby topics)

  If we decide to set this new meeting location, time, and focus for our group, it would be great to have a good turnout for this first meeting.  Do you guys want to have a steering committee meeting at 5PM, right before the meeting as we have been?  We can flesh out the above topics and how to tackle them.

  Thanks,
     Mike

On 6/27/07, Mike Sullivan <mike...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear fellow Steerers,

  This message is a followup regarding my announcement about the StLRails group that Jeff and I have started to flesh out.

  Our interest in making a "Rails focused" user group is to capitalize on the community interest in Rails so our group will grow and stay relevant, not to faction our already small Ruby User Group.  To avoid the appearance of factioning, we probably should have presented the idea to the StL Ruby meeting beforehand...but we didn't, so this e-mail will have to do.


  Jeff and I were originally thinking that it would be best to try having a few StlRails meetings before merging with StlRuby, so it didn't seem like we were hijacking our current format, but after listening to the feedback from the steering committee members, it appears that factioning of the group is of more concern.  Because of this, I propose the following:


    Here are the reasons in favor of converting the group:

        1:  Mark has been asking us to look for another place to host our meetings for some time now.
             Jeff works at RGA, so he was able to secure a meeting room there, but only on Mondays.

        2:  The 2nd Monday of the month seemed to be one of the few days in the month that didn't already have another user group meeting scheduled.

        3:  We've been having trouble getting the critical mass of users lately to keep good topics going from one month to the next; the new focus & advertising should help that out
       

    If the Stl Ruby Steering Committee decides that they want to move to this new format, here's what I propose:

        1:  Use the same user group addresses, steering committee members

        2:  Focus on re-branding and advertising in new ways to gather the rails community interest.
                     (topical code or experience based presentations to attract larger groups, consulting company swag/food, blog and/or other web presence to make people want to come participate / contribute / learn from us)

        3:  Since we want the format to be several shorter presentations per meeting, there will still be plenty of room for Ruby topics.

        4:  New time and place (RGA the 2nd Monday of every month)



This is a totally open discussion, so please weigh in with anything from: " this sounds terrible; do what you want to but this group is going to keep meeting at OCI"
to: "I love it, let's go ahead and move meeting location & time starting 2 weeks from now ".
  I hope this turns into an exciting new opportunity for our group to grow, but I'm open to any ideas....after all, we are all users in this group, and I see no reason why we can't stay as one group.


Thanks,
     Mike

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[Mark Volkmann]

My vote is "Yes", but I would like some clarification on what it means to "focus on Ruby on Rails". Maybe we should state a target average percentage of meeting time that will be devoted to Rails vs. plain Ruby. I'm hoping the target isn't more than 75%. That could be three Rails-focused meetings per Ruby-focused meeting or some meetings that are a combination of both.

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[Mike Sullivan]

Mark,
  Thanks for the quick vote!

  Good point about the amount of time devoted to each.  I'm hoping that if we can get a larger group base, more people will want to present on projects / topics that they actually use daily.  That way rather than scrounging for topics, we will be able to have interesting new topics and perspectives each meeting.

  If that happens, the steering committee should have a variety to choose from, for instance, two rails and one ruby topic for the meeting.  We would choose topics based on what presentations have been submitted and what the group is interested in hearing about.

  When the steering committee meets, we should even discuss how to get folks to present their projects to us from afar (webex?)...like Matt, who is working on his awesome startup in Boulder http://www.socialthing.com/inc/.

  - Mike

[Jeff Barczewski]

Since I would like to have a meeting which can focus primarily on Rails to keep up with everything going on there, I would vote No in that I'd prefer two groups, believing that the community may be different or broader.

However I also do hear and understand the concerns of the others regarding being able to sustain two groups. So if the majority would prefer to stay with one group then I can live with that, but would like to see the group allow for more Rails presentations than trying to alternate months (we can come up with tons of Rails topics but pure Ruby topics/presenters are harder to come by). Maybe just have multiple slots for each meeting and let them be filled as they can. Nothing requiring Ruby only topics, but nothing forcing it either. Let the community interest and volunteer presenters drive the mix.

The other option was to try two meetings and then if there was not enough to sustain both groups, merge things at a later date.

I am fine with whatever the majority wants to do.

Jeff

--
Jeff Barczewski, MasterView core team
Inspired Horizons Ruby on Rails Training and Consultancy
http://inspiredhorizons.com/

[Ed Howland]

I also vote no. Keep 2 meetings, 1 steering committee meeting at 5
before the Rails group.
2nd Monday is fine for Rails night.
Can we move the Ruby group to RGA too?

My reasons are the same as Mike's and Jeff's. There are just too many
Rails topics that I am interested in and it is a fast moving target
lately.

Ed

On 7/3/07, Mike Sullivan <mike...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
Ed Howland
http://greenprogrammer.blogspot.com
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[Curt Hibbs]

I vote Yes.

On 7/3/07, Mike Sullivan <mike...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Jeff Barczewski]

On 7/3/07, Ed Howland <ed.ho...@gmail.com> wrote:

Can we move the Ruby group to RGA too?

I don't know. I think we'd have to feel out how well things go with this first, before we could go for more slots.

The library thing is a good idea too, if there is availability.

Jeff

[John McClenning]

Sorry for the late response, looks like this came out just after I'd "singed off" for the day and I didn't check email over the Holiday.

I'm voting "YES" mostly to keep one group for now. If the user community/interest grows we can look into spinning off into Special Interest Groups later. The new day is going to suck for me during the school year but I'll attend as many as possible.

The steering committee meeting at 5:00 works for me, for the days I'm able to attend. Is the steering committee meeting going to be at RGA or some other location?

John

On 7/3/07, Mike Sullivan <mike...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Mike Sullivan]

  Not sure if folks thought I was in favor of two separate meetings, but I know for myself, it is difficult to attend multiple UG meetings every month with so much other stuff going on with family, work, etc.  And I really like attending our Ruby UG meetings.

  I think that if we don't keep with one meeting, current members may choose one meeting or the other, so I vote "YES" to consolidate.

  Thanks,
      Mike

On 7/3/07, Mike Sullivan <mike...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Curt Hibbs]

Yup... I, personally, also definitely choose one of the meetings (if there were two).

Curt

[Craig Buchek]

I vote for 2 meetings, but 1 group.

To help keep attendance at the existing meeting at current levels, I'd
suggest making the Rails meetings significantly different. Instead of
formal pre-scheduled presentations, maybe just have unplanned
discussions. Or just have a Rails Hack Night, with hands-on coding,
kind of like what Sean Carley was doing a year ago.

> 2: The 2nd Monday of the month seemed to be one of the few days in the
> month that didn't already have another user group meeting scheduled.

Actually, the C# user group falls on that night. I don't normally
attend, but occasionally they have a topic that interests me. Like
this month, they're talking about Silverlight. Ruby and Rails will
almost always win out for me, but there could be others who choose
differently. There's probably not enough overlap to worry about it,
unless they talk about MonoRail again. (And if that happens, we could
hold a joint meeting.)

> new focus & advertising should help

Either way, we should work on this. Let people know where to find
local help and discussions on Rails as well as Ruby.

Craig