At the end of 2018, the members of the Joomla London User Group met to discuss the meetings for the following year.
It was a really good discussion which brought out a lot of ideas. Over the past few weeks, these have distilled into a new meetings format.
We decided to split the meetings into two parts. The second part is the usual 7 pm to 9 pm that we have always had. We will focus more on those new to Joomla and in the second hour, we will have a speaker who will be of interest to all. Often these talks will be via Skype or Google Chat and will be recorded other JUGs can watch and people can use them as references later.
The first guest speakers of the new season is pencilled in as:-
January
Benjamin Trenkle - https://www.wicked-software.de/
Benjamin is very active in the development of Joomla 4 and in particular the WorkFlow functionality. He is also a lead in the Pizza Bugs and Fun group in Germany and will be talking on that subject as well as any we can coerce him into chatting about.
February is going to be
Eoin Oliver - https://www.squareballoon.co.uk/
Eoin specialises in campaign emails and is going to talk about using Joomla and Joomla extensions to help you with this process.
March we have
Rowan is the current President of Joomla
Thanks to Last Years Speakers
In the past year we have been fortunate to attract some wonderful talks from some well known Joomla! Faces.
Anibal Sanchez - https://www.extly.com/
Elisa Foltyn - https://coolcat-creations.com/en/
Geraint Wyn Edwards - https://www.easylayouts.net/
Peter Martin - https://db8.nl/
Peter van Westen - https://www.regularlabs.com/
Sander Potjer - https://perfectwebteam.com/
We have also had talks in the meetings from members of the meeting.
In the past, they have included:-
Brian Teeman - https://brian.teeman.net/
George Wilson - http://georges.website/
Hugh Douglas-Smith - https://webappz.co.uk/
We intend to record these in-house meetings as well as the international meetings which should provide a valuable resource for all who are interested in Joomla.
We have negotiated an additional hour before the main meeting. This is open to all but will focus on developers and will be more coding based.
If you want to arrive early for the main but sit the opening session out you can do in the excellent cafe inside the centre. It has good wifi and great coffee, everything needed to get ready for the main meeting.
The first meeting of the new year will be on Tuesday, January 15th 2019.
The schedule will be as follows.
Pre Meeting
Pre 6 pm - Coffee shop.
6 pm - Developers meeting. Introductions.
6:10 pm - Setting topic from the group. (It can be code based, a problem which a developer has and needs advice for or discussion on Joomla 4 development)
If there is no pressing topic then the suggestion is we devote time to pull request testing and bug squad issues.
Main Meeting
7 pm Introductions. A short intro from each person, their name, if they have used Joomla.
7:10 pm Joomla news. A snippet on what's been happening in the Joomla-sphere.
7:15 pm Surgery - a time to look at problems and for the group to find solutions. Preference will be given to people who are new to the group and those with the least experience with Joomla. It can be about a proposed site, an existing build or an established site with a problem.
7:40 pm New extensions. An opportunity to bring to the group any new extensions that members have come across. If you have a working version then please do bring details so we can share.
7:55 pm Establish the connection with the guest speaker or welcome them to the floor.
8:00 pm Guest Speaker time.
8:45 pm Questions for the guest speaker.
9:00 pm End meeting and off to a local Public house to continue discussions.
