Re: Potential Brit ruby meeting formally Chunky Bacon

Ruby
1

Thanks Paul but for now it might be best if I did just sit quietly in
the corner like a good little girl.

Thank you very much to the people who politely informed me of existing
groups I can go along to. I’m glad that the profile of the brit ruby
community has been raised and we’re all now aware of meetings and
groups. It would be nice one day to get these groups and communities
together for a few drinks in Blackpool, Bournemouth, Brighton (or some
other seaside resort beginning with B) one summer… Plenty of time to
plan.

At least we know there’s some of us interested. ( : Would be a nice
networking day if anything…

Gem

2

On 10/27/06, Cameron, Gemma (UK) [email protected] wrote:

Thanks Paul but for now it might be best if I did
just sit quietly in the corner like a good little girl.

Gemma, thanks for instigating a discussion on a grassroots Ruby
national/regional UK meetup! Please feel encouraged by the
conversation on this thread.

All Ruby meetings started with a few people doing what you’ve just
done, saying hey let’s meet up and chat about this Ruby thing - naming
a date and place and the rest just sort of falls into place.

Some reminiscing …

I was at the first NYC Ruby group meeting at the beginning of 2004.
That was one great guy, Francis H., saying hey let’s meet up. He’d
been encouraged by other great people who’d been organizing RubyConf.
We only averaged about 5 people a month that first year in New York,
but it was the day of the month I most looked forward to!

When I got to the UK, I was pleased to find many already interested in
Ruby, and it didn’t take much effort for a few of us to turn that into
a monthly meeting in London.

Back to the point …

I’m friends with Tom, and I feel his point was there’re lots of us in
the UK and we’re all interested and available to help out. We’ve got
contacts with people who’d love to come speak, and with organizations
that might like to sponsor or be involved.

Thank you very much to the people who politely
informed me of existing
groups I can go along to. I’m glad that the profile
of the brit ruby
community has been raised and we’re all now aware of meetings and
groups. It would be nice one day to get these groups and communities
together for a few drinks in Blackpool, Bournemouth, Brighton (or some
other seaside resort beginning with B) one summer… Plenty of time to
plan.

At our local meetings around the UK let’s discuss people’s interest in
larger meetups. Maybe some will be encouraged to start a local meeting
too!

At least we know there’s some of us interested. ( :
Would be a nice networking day if anything…

I’m sure we’ll see a great meetup come of this!

cheers,
Rob McKinnon

3

On 27/10/06, Cameron, Gemma (UK) [email protected] wrote:

Thanks Paul but for now it might be best if I did just sit quietly in
the corner like a good little girl.

So: that kind of response totally wasn’t my intention. Paul thinks I
was being rude, which made him angry. Well, I can kind of see why; my
response was written in a more abrupt tone than I normally write in,
probably because I was at work and in a hurry. At the same time: I
probably misread your tone, too. My email tone, for record, is often
quite dour, and I was only trying to point out currently existing Ruby
groups who might be interested, and might be able to offer support.

Also, I wanted to point out that there is a Ruby community in the
UK, however tiny. It’s still slightly emergent because Ruby’s profile
in the UK has been (until last year) scarce to say the least, and a
lot of the uptake in it is due to Rails. So pointing out groups like
LRUG and the Manchester-area/Northern crowds is not a way of saying
“hey, go here!” but a way of saying “there are other people who might
be interested, too!”

That was all. I’m sorry if offence was taken, as that wasn’t the
intention; I’m also sorry if the purpose of my response wasn’t so
clear.

I, for one, would be a) interested in such a meeting and b) interested
in making it a success (dependent on time and location, of course!).

t.