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PHP North East: the first of many

Last night, Anthony Sterling kicked off the first meeting of PHPNE, a Newcastle-based PHP user group in the style of several existing regional get-togethers. I joined a dozen or so other local developers at the Town Wall, which has kindly agreed to host the group for the forseeable future.

Apologies for the quality of the images here – I only had my jilapidated old 3G, and the venue was pretty dark to boot.

Kicking off

The group meets on the third Tuesday of every month, downstairs in the Town Wall's excellent Cinema Room, which has capacity to hold a fair amount of people around a projector in the middle. One thing that will probably need fixing for the next event was the music, which apparently couldn't be turned off – I was personally of the opinion that an acid-jazz soundtrack added something unique that wasn't found at similar events, but I concede that some speakers might be thrown off by it. Regardless, future events I attend will be marked down for not having mounted wild boar heads on the wall.

As a 'kick-off meeting' of sorts, the talk itself was focused entirely on the future organisation of the event – Anthony spent twenty minutes or so laying down his thoughts on how the format would work. He (along with most of the attendees, I think) was of the opinion that the event should be relatively community-led, and anyone interested in getting involved should contact Anthony ASAP. In particular, Anthony asked for volunteers for:

• Future talks: There was some discussion during the group of the length / level these talks should be aimed for, but at the moment I think these are still relatively up in the air (see 'Discussion' below).
• Web site and Google group: The group already has some great branding, courtesy of Amy Irving. I may have volunteered to help put the site together, but I'm sure Anthony would be grateful to hear from anyone else willing to help in this regard.
• Sponsorship: If your organisation would like to get its name in front of some top local developers at an entirely beer-and-snacks-based rate, get in touch – it's about as good value-for-money as you're ever likely to see.
• Community noise: If you can't help out with any of the others, you can probably set aside ten minutes for this – write a blog post, or a couple of well placed tweets, and raise the group's profile for the next event!

Discussion

Following the talk, there was a short discussion where various folk floated ideas or raised questions about the group going forward:

• Talk length: Originally, Anthony suggested that each event would feature a single speaker giving a 30-40 minute presentation. Several attendees suggested that this may be too long (at least at first) and that perhaps two or three speakers, with 15-20 minute slots, might be more manageable. There was also some discussion of the 'flash talk' format which has been popular at recent SuperMondays events.
• Pitch level: I wondered what level the talks would be pitched at – PHP is a language with users of wildly varying backgrounds and skill levels (coming at this as a designer who uses PHP when required, as opposed to a developer). General consensus was that the level would set itself after a few groups, but that a higher level was preferable.
• Event time: As the event kicked off at 6pm, a few people wondered whether a slightly later start time might be possible / appropriate.

I'm sure these discussions will continue and shift to the Google group once that's set up – if you weren't present but have an opinion, the Twitter backchannel is probably your friend until then!

Rounding up

I definitely look forward to the next event – the venue is comfortable, and last night's attendees are always great folk to chat with. I'm sure I've missed some stuff from this roundup – anyone who was there feel free to give me a shout or just leave a comment below, and I'll amend the post accordingly. If you have any questions, or want to get involved, you're probably best getting in touch via Twitter.

See you at the next one!