Usergroup Support Committee
Committee Members
- Chris McAvoy [Chicago]
- Sean O'Donnell [Dublin]
- Michael Foord [London]
- Jeff Rush [Dallas]
- Calvin Hendryx-Parker [Indianapolis]
- Kartic Krishnamurthy [San Francisco]
- Sean Reifschneider [Colorado]
Charter
To encourage the creation of new usergroups worldwide and to strengthen those that already exist. At PyCon 2007 the following priority items were selected for initial implementation:
- Improve the ability of site visitors to find usergroups near them.
- Design and provide a support kit to those seeking to form new usergroups. There may be monetary items that can be given, in consultation with the PSF.
- Create a mailing list for the organizers of current and future usergroups to share ideas and mentor new groups.
- Encourage and support usergroups in creating per-group mailing lists on mail.python.org.
Active Task List/Assignments
- Come up with the goals of the committee.
- Come up with a set of action items.
- Are there any other resources the committee needs?
- A discussion of how people would like to proceed.
What Does Auditing The Usergroups Mean?
- Follow each link from the local usergroups wiki
- note those with broken links
- note whether they have a mailing list or not, and where is it hosted (mail.python.org or elsewhere)
- note the posting address to their mailing list
- peek into their mail archives and judge whether they are still active
- determine from their website, where possible, who their contact people are
- confirm their choice of discussion language (German, French, etc.)
Meeting Agendas
Apr 25, 2007
Questions to Answer
- Maintain a mailing list for group organizers and another list for this committee, or share one list?
- How can we improve the findability of usergroups without writing software - PSF wants a non-software solution.
- How can we effectively audit the existing usergroups - I (Jeff) have started a spreadsheet and investigated some groups but it is slow, tedious work. Also cannot audit languages I don't speak.
- What other benefits can the PSF bestow upon usergroups to strengthen them?
- Do we want to meet on IRC periodically? How often?
Proposed Steps
- As part of audit, we need to collect email addresses of organizers; not all group webpages have them, many only have a mailing list.
- Once we have an email list of group organizers, work up an official announcement to them:
- welcoming them to the organizers mailing list
- pointing them to the support kit
- Work up a general announcement inviting those who lack a usergroup near them to:
- join the organizers mailing list
- download the support kit
- register on the usergroup wiki
- announce on the python-announce and python-users mailing list
Need Help
- identifying good lecture videos
- rounding up reusable presentation materials
- auditing the various usergroups
- suggestions for the How to Start a Usergroup document
- creating generic flyers (if more than 'meeting at Joe's 8pm')
- brainstorming on how to find members for new groups