This morning I see not one, but two posts from user group leaders who are
reassessing how their user group is working and what they need to do for the
future of the group.
Sam Gentile leads Beantown.NET, in
downtown Boston. The other long-established and very large Boston.NET group is
actually in Waltham, which is some 20-30 miles outside of Boston, so having
meetings downtown definitely satisfies the needs of some developers. But after a
year, Sam was ready for the group to be more than a one-off every month: get
more organized, have some direction. Here is his
description of the meeting his group had about this and the outcome. (Also
in this post is some great news for Sam, a new fun job doing something he is
really excited about!)
Joey Brenn, from Wichita
Developers.NET had similar
things on his mind when he attended the INETA User Group Leader summit in
Orlando last month. He wants his group to be more organized and really think
into the future. He knew that to do that he needed to have some corporate
sponsorship, but without non-profit status, there are barriers to that. I
definitely know about this. For VTdotNET, I try to keep financial transactions
at a minimum and anything anyone gives the group, they do out of the goodness of
their heart since we aren't a non-profit. We don't even have a bank account. Any
extra cash we have (like oh, $40 maybe - when we get pizza ourselves and the
members contributions exceed the cost of the pizza) is in a little jewlery box
in my dresser! So Joey came home from the summit and knew that the next step for
his group was to become a non-profit. This will take organization and dedicated
volunteers and it sounds like Joey is on the right track for his group.
User groups are very different and everyone has a different formula for
success. I like to use my little group, VTdotNET, and Chris Pels' Boston .NET as
good examples of how different they can be. My group is small, though we get
25-40 people at our meetings and a few times even 50. I basically run the group
myself, though I now have a dedicated person to pick up pizza and someone who
has just started picking up the soda. Other than that, I do it myself - organize
meetings, find space, find speakers, get swag, do the website, do the meeting
announcements, etc. and it has worked. Chris's group went through a major
transition about 3 years ago when he realized it was just getting too big.
Boston has a HUGE developer community - Code Camps and DevDays there draw some
400-500 attendees. Boston.NET is now very organized and runs like a little
corporation. They have lots of very dedicated volunteers who have totally taken
ownership of different tasks and their website... wow! But both groups are very
successful. Everyone figures out what works for them. Not having a structure and
people to be responsible for and all of the overhead of being very organized
works very well for me - it's my style and I know how to run with it! Except for
2 weather related cancellations, we have had great and well
attended meetings every month for over three years now. We have done well
without getting funding. We manage to get gifts for speakers, donated or from
the jewelry box fund and get pizza paid for for about 1/2 of our meetings and we
get lots of books and swag to give away.
Anyway, there is no one pattern that works for all groups. Although people
focus on the tangibles that INETA provides (i.e. speakers, some swag and
whatever else they have up their sleeves for the coming years 
) I think what
user group leaders can learn from each other has always been the greatest
benefit. Oh - that's a perfect way to plug the totally ignored INETA forums,
except for the fact that there is a new website coming down the pipes so I have
no idea what will happen to them. Hopefully all of the info in there will stick
around in some format.
www.acehaid.org