I prefer to be known as a Drupal User Group Disorganizer, but that's just me ;)

Thanks for throwing out the idea, Jacob.

I polled LA Drupal members the other night and it seems about a handful or more are already set to do in D.C. That was great to see so early.

I and my co-manager, Mike Stewart, will be attending this meetup during the con and are more than happy to share information about what we've done, and how the group did in 2007, 2008, plus our outlook on 2009. Our plans for 2009 are so Web 2.5!

http://groups.drupal.org/los-angeles
http://ladrupal.org
http://drupalcampla.com

Great idea.

The DC area has two major Drupal meetings a month. DC Drupalers and NOVA Drupal. We intermingle a lot too. I run the Northern Virginia (NoVA) Drupal meetups and I am active in the DC group as well. We are helping to organize this DrupalCon with the folks at Development Seed (who organize the original DC Drupalers group).

Our NOVA group is new and was developed in response to local demand for more than one group (based both upon location and format of the meetups). We could really use some topic ideas.

Jeff

We have a a few meetups every month in the SF Bay Area. One in Berkeley, another in San Francisco and a third in the North Bay. In the Berkeley and SF meetups most of the time we have a scheduled presentation and sometimes just an open discussion.

I'd love to participate and discuss what other groups are up to.

Chicago Drupal Meet Up Group organizers will be in DC. We are in :)

When and where??

Indy Drupal users will be representing as well. We have meetups every 2 weeks and are beginning to add Drupal "Hackfests" to weekends here and there, where we bring in our personal Drupal issues and get help or work them out as a team. We're trying to get more involvement in our area, so tips would be great.

LA Drupal members are interested in having some code sprints and other non-presentation style meetups, and I'm really interested in hearing the various methods that you folks felt went well. Our group is not just a few people hanging out, so I'm really interested in hearing the diverse sized groups and how they've kept people focused, rewarded participants, battle getting bogged down by repeating info/educating, plus how to choose targets for code events that are both long and short in time.

We've go some great momentum going. If people have items/topics they'd like to go over post them here. We'll come up with a sample agenda and get it to everyone around February so we can all come "prepared". It is just a BoF session so don't get too caught up in preparations though but it'd be nice to know what to expect and what kinda of questions might be thrown your way

@Slurpee: When & Where: Drupalcon! the exact time/place won't be decided for a while now, we need to wait until all sessions are in and everything is more solidified.

The BOF session last year in Boston was great. I'll definitely try and make this one too...

I don't know what the normal schedule / plans of the DC group are, but maybe if we can schedule this one late in the day, it could lead to a DC meeting / dinner.

My vote goes to an organizer dinner one night after sessions. Reservations?

+1 from the Vancouver contingent. i don't organize the main meetup, but did drupalcamp, and am organizing a probono christmas code sprint... that counts, right? ;-)

Looking forward to sharing best practices from Atlanta - dinner/drinks for organizers is a great idea.

I co-run the Drupal group in Durham, NC and it would be great to get ideas from other meetup groups. We just started about 5 months ago and I'd love to get some ideas from bigger groups about:
- holding Drupal trainings/DrupalCamp
- balancing the needs of new Drupalers and experts
- meeting topics that appeal to everyone

This is looking like a great lineup of people. Keep letting people and having them comment on this page. We're just over 2 months away now.

Central Illinois DUG will be there to represent!

Count me it! We are launching the Nashville Drupal Group during the upcoming PodCamp Nashville March 7th (Currently 375 reg attendees for PodCamp).

Myself and other leaders of the Dallas drupal group will be at drupalcon. Please let us know time and place of this BOF.

Count me in.

We're going to meet Thursday at 4:30 (or closest BoF time). I will be hosting the Drupalcamp Howto Session at 3:00 and will be going straight into this BoF (seems good timing).
http://dc2009.drupalcon.org/session/drupalcamp-how-and-q

As promised at our BoF at lunch yesterday I've created a g.d.o group for group organizers, and it is now live:

http://groups.drupal.org/local-user-group-organizers

I'll open a discussion for what sorts of things people would like to see there.

I can definitely see the argument that we don't want to create so many groups than we become a distributed, confused mess.

As a local Drupal group organizer, here are some of the needs that I would love to see met by a g.d.o group:
- Share best practices with other local group organizers (topics, common issues, etc.)
- Connect to larger events like a nearby Drupal Camp. For example, in North Carolina, we didn't know that the Atlanta Drupalers were already planning a Drupal Camp.
- Create an easy way for people to find local Drupal groups. Our Durham/Chapel Hill/Raleigh group is actually part of the North Carolina group on g.d.o because our local group was rejected by g.d.o.
- Create a knowledge bank through wikis or other forms of collaboration. For example, I found out at DrupalCon that other groups have put together quickstart guides for new Drupalers in their area. It would be great if we could share these and potentially other curriculum. However, in order to do this, we all have to be connected to one organizing group.

I think that one group of groups that includes the Drupal Camps could potentially meet all of these needs.