Advocacy/UsergroupSupport/Committee

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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:

  1. Improve the ability of site visitors to find usergroups near them.

  2. 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.

  3. Create a mailing list for the organizers of current and future usergroups to share ideas and mentor new groups.

  4. Encourage and support usergroups in creating per-group mailing lists on mail.python.org.

Active Task List/Assignments

  1. Come up with the goals of the committee. (the what) 1. Help existing groups prosper and grow 2. help create new groups 3. support UG’s wanting to conduct local events (?)

  2. Come up with a set of action items. 1. Study how to get usergroups onto local google. 2. Start an overall newsletter (PDF/eZine) about usergroups, by PSF. 3. Raise visibility of usergroups by: a. blogging about them, b. interviews with leaders on Python411, and c. articles in The Python Papers 4. support UGs with initial speakers or a speaking tour.

  3. Are there any other resources the committee needs?

  4. 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

  1. Maintain a mailing list for group organizers and another list for this committee, or share one list?

  2. How can we improve the findability of usergroups without writing software - PSF wants a non-software solution.

  3. 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.

  4. What other benefits can the PSF bestow upon usergroups to strengthen them?

  5. 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