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Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:29 UTC
I recently moved to Nashville, and as part of that transition, I’ve taken the helm as the new organizer for the Nashville PHP user group. I posted what follows to the Nashville PHP mailing list, but I thought it would be a good blog post. Enjoy!
Six years ago, I founded the Atlanta PHP user group (along with a few others), and I’ve been organizing it since then. It’s been a lot of hard work to grow and develop the PHP community in the Atlanta area, but it’s also been rewarding to meet so many great people and to see them take interest in and become invested in the continued success of their PHP user group. I’m proud to have been a part of building that community to the point where it can sustain itself without my involvement.
Now, I’m in Nashville. A few months ago, I moved here to pursue a job with a local web start-up. I never had any intention of running the local PHP user group, but Will Fitch, the former Nashville PHP organizer, contacted me to see if I would be interested in taking over the reins. He had moved out of the area and was no longer able to devote the time necessary to keep the group growing. I humbly accepted the torch, and that’s why I’m now the Nashville PHP organizer.
There have been several incarnations of PHP user groups in the Nashville area over the past ten years, all with varied success. It is my hope to build on those successes and to grow a sustained community of members who are personally invested in seeing a vibrant and active PHP community in the Middle Tennessee area.
That’s a lofty goal that will require a lot of hard work, so I’ll need your help. Nevertheless, I’m up for the challenge, and I hope you’ll join me in growing this community.
First of all, a few matters of business:
- Nashville PHP will hold regular monthly meetings on the second Tuesday of every month at 7pm at the same location each month. I am currently solidifying this location, and I’ll let you know when details are finalized.
- June 8 at 7pm will be our first meeting. Location and topic TBA.
- Nashville PHP will continue to use Meetup.com as our central place for membership and meeting announcements and RSVPs.
- I’m dropping the discussion forums on Meetup.com in favor of a Google Group for discussions and job postings. Please join the Nashville PHP Google Group.
- Follow @NashvillePHP on Twitter for community status updates. Also, if you have a Twitter account and you want to be listed on the nashvillephp-devs list, let me know. I’ll add you.
- Join me on Freenode IRC in the #nashvillephp channel. If you’re new to IRC, read this basic IRC tutorial to get started.
- Employers and recruiters are welcome to post job opportunities to our discussion list. Before posting, please read the rules.
Welcome to the new Nashville PHP! I hope you’ll join me in making this community a success.
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Tags: nashville, nashvillephp, php, phpc, phpcommunity, phpgroups, user-group
Sat, 3 Oct 2009 19:49 UTC
Miami CodeWorks, so far, was the smallest conference but I still think some important connections were made, especially with regard to user group contacts.
At the Microsoft happy hour on the second day of the conference in Miami, I was able to meet Brendon Van Heyzen, who is interested in starting up a PHP user group in Boca Raton. It seems that the Miami PHP user group has quietened down and gone silent, and he’s interested in starting up a group for the Boca Raton PHP community. We had a great discussion, and I offered him some points of advice on how to start a group, and this reminded me of the user group starter package I’ve discussed with Rafael and Michelangelo. I really need to push the PHP Groups initiative to get started on this.
The two main pieces of advice I offered were to start a mailing list and then to find adequate meeting space. The mailing list is important to get discussion going and to see what kind of group the people in your area want to have. It will inform your search for meeting space so you can find the kind of space that will work best for the type of meetings you want to have.
So, CodeWorks has been an excellent way to reach out to local leaders and people who want to start groups in their areas. If you’re interested in starting a group, join the PHP Groups mailing list and introduce yourself.
Rounding out our visit to Miami, I enjoyed some great Cuban food at Puerto Sagua, and we actually managed to find some good beer at The Room in Miami Beach. It was a beer oasis in the midst of a desert filled with mojito sand.
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Tags: codeworks, conferences, cw09, php, phpgroups, user-group
Tue, 9 Sep 2008 19:55 UTC
After a long hiatus and a very quiet mailing list and forum, I am delighted to announce that the main communication channel for PHP Groups is moving to the official PHP project at php.net!
You may recall PHP Groups being created over a year ago for the purpose of networking together the leaders and organizers of PHP user groups around the world. I’ve been very bad about keeping things moving on this front, but I want to pick things back up and get us talking again. I also want to get us back on track for the mission of this group:
PHP Groups networks PHP user groups into a tighter community, provides a means to share information and resources among its community members, and aids in the formation of new PHP user groups.
In the near future, we’ll have more discussion about what we can do to progress toward fulfilling this mission.
In the meantime, if you help with the organization of your local PHP user group in any way, feel free to join the ug-admins mailing list or subscribe to the ug.admin news group at php.net:
ug-admins-subscribe [ at ] lists.php.net
news://news.php.net/ug.admins
Also, look to this list for announcements about meet-ups of user group leaders and organizers at upcoming conferences!
And, as always, I’m lurking in #phpgroups on Freenode IRC, so feel free to join me, if you like.
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Tags: php, phpcommunity, phpgroups, pug, user-group
Wed, 7 Mar 2007 21:33 UTC
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Ben Ramsey
770-704-5279
Email: ben [at] phpgroups.org
Web site: www.phpgroups.org
Worldwide support network for PHP user groups launches
ATLANTA, Ga., Mar. 7, 2007 – PHP Groups, a worldwide network for PHP user groups, launched today with the intent to foster an open community for PHP user groups to share and exchange ideas and information. Membership is open to anyone working with a PHP user group or interested in starting one.
“This is a great opportunity for PHP user groups to become more aware of each other, find out what works and what doesn’t, and share ideas and, potentially, some resources. I think the overall PHP community will benefit from this kind of exchange at the grassroots level—the user groups,” said Ben Ramsey, the organizer of the Atlanta PHP user group and one of the founding members of PHP Groups.
Every month, PHP.net lists events for over fifty PHP user groups. However, there may be as many as 200 or more PHP user groups around the world. PHP Groups seeks to unite these user groups and provide a means for them to communicate with each other.
User groups are clubs focused on the use of a particular technology. PHP user groups focus on the PHP programming language and related technologies such as Linux, the Apache Web server, and the MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. The first PHP user group formed in Chicago in 1997.
At present, PHP Groups provides a mailing list where user group leaders and those interested may subscribe and take part in a dialog with other user groups. “I hope that part of our accomplishments will involve uniting and bringing together for an open dialog all of the PHP user groups across the world,” said Ramsey. “I hope this mailing list can get that conversation going.”
To subscribe to the PHP Groups mailing list, go to www.phpgroups.org.
About PHP Groups
PHP Groups networks PHP user groups into a tighter community, provides a means to share information and resources among its community members, and aids in the formation of new PHP user groups.
About PHP
PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, or simply PHP, is a “widely-used general-purpose scripting language,” designed with the Internet in mind. Commonly implemented to manipulate databases and dynamic content on the server, PHP is also an indispensable local scripting tool. Delivering high performance, intuitive syntax, powerful structure, and a rich feature set, PHP puts ideas into action, both locally and on the Internet.
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Download a PDF version of this press release.
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Tags: community, php, php-group, php-mongers, phpgroups, user-group
