From: Gregory Brown Date: 2005-10-27T14:12:04+09:00 Subject: UNH.rb may soon become NewHaven.rb As far as I know, the University of New Haven ruby group (UNH.rb) is the only Ruby Group in the Greater New Haven (connecticut) area. We are a new group (established in mid september) but we would like to expand our horizons by opening up our meetings to the greater New Haven area, appealing to those at Yale, Quinnipiac, Southern, and the other area Universities as well as people in the area industries along with any hobbyists. UNH.rb was newb centric, whereas NewHaven.rb will be newb friendly but not centered around ruby fundamentals as much. We're thinking of doing monthly meetings with about 60% planned talks / presentations and 40% discussion and tom-foolery and then weekly hack sessions that'll be totally informal and optional. I'd like to know a couple things. 0) Are we trampling anyones territory? If there is already an established Ruby group in the area, we'd rather work with joining up with you than compete. We're already collaborating with NYC.rb and I've attempted to contact Boston.rb about attending some of their meetings and getting some ideas, but if there is a more local group, we'd like to know about you too. If you've only got a few members and are open to expansion, maybe we could combine efforts. 1) Anyone out there interested? Meetings will most likely be in offices in New Haven and in the universities of the Greater New Haven area. The 'official' meetings will most likely be once a month and the hack sessions will be informal and probably weekly when time permits and schedules do not conflict. 2) Any suggestions from established users groups about how to go about setting up an appealing group, recruiting members, etc? We're already trying to steal as much ideas from NYC.rb as possible, as myself and another UNH Rubyist attended their meeting last night and were wholly impressed, but the more sound advice, the better off we'll be. 3) Anyone want to help organize the group? Right now I am the only member with more than one year of Ruby experience (~1.25), so I can definitely use help in this area. well... hopefully this will raise a few eyebrows. My group is currently going through the decision making process about whether or not they would be happy to restructure (though this is more of a formality than anything), but you can see the discussion as it develops here: http://stonecode.org/organizations/unh.rb/board/viewtopic.php?t=33 If all goes well, we'll do a quick vote and announce NewHaven.rb on Sunday.