pycon_meetup_minutes.txt

# minutes of discussion: local user groups: problems and success stories.

@ Delhi: Satya
 - regular meetups happening since past few months.
 - format: 1 workshop 1 talk in 6 hrs every alternate saturday.
 - summer school events: http://pychill.fossevents.in/
 - problems:
    - no central location
    - unreliable turnouts.
    - 

# Bangalore: Sivaa
- the difference b/w the number of people who say and those who turn up.
    - code dojo - happens in london - nicholas
- keeping people engaged.
    - different levels of content.
    - 
- beginner workshops
    - full day workshops.
    - carried for couple of months
    - different people talking about same topic.

- lot of events
- keep it interesting.
- getting speakers: giving back to the community.
- 


# Ram,  FSM Pondicherry.
- created small team to solve problems
- platform to show your skill.
- community hackerspace
- eg: harwdware weather station, by open hardware movement.
    



# Pune Community
- difficulty to invite people to come and talk.
- on an average 30 people show up for meetups / devsprints.
- Kushal: too lazy to get out of his house [distance]
- Sivaa: B'lore weather, clashing meetups, distance are factors.
    - try to organize the meetups at a central location.
    - weird complains from misdirected [google maps] attendees 
    - 

- Chennai
  - good location: Institute of Mathematical Sciences.
  - Vyjay Kumar and Shreyas: 
    - announce ahead of time.
    - format: two talks, separated by spnsored tea break.
    - talks are recorded and shared online.
    - no basic talks.
    - location, infrastructure, parking facility, support from prof.
  - do students come to talks? -> data not available.
  - 
  - Sivaa: asking the hosting companies to talk about themselves for 15mins.
  - Shakti: large cities can do meetups at  variable locations: round robin.

@Kushal: experiences with DGPLUG.
  - virtual meetups, IRC channels.
  - online summer course, 3 months, become upstream contributers.
  - start at a basic level: how to communicate.
  - move to programming: solve daily life issues.
  - community has matured: international participants.
  - face2face meet is at pyconindia, but multiple virtual meetups.
  - ecosystem has builtup: job opportunities, meet developers.
  - community first, work on upstream projects.

@Kiran: ChennaiPy.
  - people are more comfortable asking questions on meetups instead of ML.
  - workshops before meetups.
  - occaisonal mails to people regular attendees
  - connecting people, to their interests and personalities.

# Startup concerns:
  - request for sessions on: MVP with python instead of intro to Django.

# Nagpur: <name>?
  - Nagpur techies.
  - surge on meetup.com groups.
  - same people come to all meetups.
  - permanent location, small city, no travel concens.
  - still rsvps don't reflect actual tunouts.

# [Question] Why can't we
  - live streams
    - not in India
  - podcasts:
    - upload to soundcloud.
  - video recording.
    - difficult to process them and upload them.
  - @Kushal: processing backlog makes it unfeasible.



Gender Ratio
  DGPLUG:
    - >50% regular women attendees.
    - active members are from colleges.

  Sivaa:
    - Tech conversion is difficult.
    - larger ratio of women developers are working with .net.

  
Kuhal, pitching are about pyladies.
- open groups
- not limited to females.
- request to help them out.
- djangogirls is another one picking up.


Summary [Satya]:
 - sense of urgency is important, but its not the end.
 - same faces reappear.
 - continue doing things.
 - we don't have solutios: but the resources and energy.
 - fence-sitters come down when things start happening.
 - no silver bullet, local problems need different solutions.
 - upstream contribution is important.