JUG Meeting Report Back

So we held our fist JUG meeting on the 30th June 2010, taking advantage of the respite in the longest party I have ever known, that is the soccer world cup!  We had five people attend the meeting and we took some decisions on how to build the JUG going forward.

First we selected the last Monday of each month as the official meeting date for the group. For now Scrooges Diner at Bright Water Commons will remain our meeting place, although we may change this in future. The intention is though that it will remain in the Randburg area so members will get o know the traffic patterns and be able to estimate travel time appropriately. The format for meetings will be a 15 minute presentation followed by discussion.

The start time will be set as 5:30pm for 6:00pm. If we made the start time later, we were concerned some members may find it hard to get ,um, approval, from their significant others. The official ending time is 8:00pm but this is really quiet artificial since people will stay later and, of course, people can leave earlier too.

Besides regular meetings, one of the ambitions of the JUG is to help foster and grow skills in South Africa and also to build bridges with developers in other countries in Africa. Our long-term plans include starting some projects for the community to use as a focus of coding effort and skill transfer. It would be great to eventual hold some coding camps and even, hopefully, organise a conference or two!

So please help us build a great community of coders and people who are passionate about technology and Africa by joining and participating in the JUG. Will upload some pics soon.