[Melbourne-pm] Request for July talks [was Meetings via Google Hangout]

[Brad Bowman]

On 09/07/13 15:08, Toby Corkindale wrote:
> On 02/07/13 12:28, Alfie John wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 2, 2013, at 11:54 AM, Drew Taylor wrote:
>>> Since Sydney.pm meets so rarely, and Melbourne.pm meets every month,
>>> would
>>> you be willing to try using a Google Hangout so us Sydney-ites could
>>> attend? The question is inspired by an experiment from Toronto.pm [1].
>>
>> We try to have meetings every month but lately it's been hard to get
>> speakers. Although I haven't put out a request for speakers for July,
>> I'm not exactly getting swapped by volunteers either.
>>
>> On that (even though it is short notice), would anyone like to volunteer
>> to talk for July? Strategic Data have kindly put up their hand to hold
>> the next few talks.
>
> Someone else will need to do the actual hosting here however -- I am not
> available next Wednesday, and am out of the country for the meeting dates in
> August and September.

I can probably skip my usual Wednesday class for those two months to open the
Strategic Data door (if needed).

Perhaps whoever is the speaker each time can do the reminding and whatever
else needs doing.

Toby discussed sharing the admin burden around, if the work could be
reduced or streamlined then perhaps it would be less of an issue.
Is anyone else interested in chipping in without having to be the sole leader?
For organization purposes, we probably need a per-meeting co-ordinator,
but that can rotate.

Strategic Data's management have expressed willingness to provide
some non-technical administration effort, if that would be helpful.

Other ideas for meeting activities discussed with Toby:

* Perl Video nights, talks from O.S. + discussion
* Perl Coding Competitions (for prizes)
* Bug squashing nights (last Paul one organized was fun)
* Review modules as a group (and publish review)
* Read code as a group and discuss (CPAN or private code)
* Hackathons, perhaps write modules as a group
* Perl Trivia Night
* Perl Golf Competition
* Work-flow / dotfiles show and tell
* Discuss architecture questions
* Write tests for things
* Traditional talks

I put this list in a meetup poll as a test:
   http://www.meetup.com/Melbourne-Perl-Mongers/polls/861822/
Perhaps we can put up lists of potential talks there for feedback.

Some of these things require a fair amount of preparation so would need
a champion, others would be more light-weight.

We should also thank Alfie and Toby for doing the job that the rest
won't (me included, I'm not volunteering) for so long.

Brad