What is the Vision?

Extracted from a meetup.com posting from Mar 2005:

Posting from Will at Pythoneers meetup: What's the Vision?

Hi all,

I joined last month and have been since following what you all have been discussing. Haven't been able to attend the meetings due to a six month-old baby and a tired mom

First of all, I'd like to express my appreciation to Jeff Rush, for pioneering (or Pythoneering ) the user group. It's high time for DFW python users like us to unite, stand up and be counted.

Having said that, one thing that is not clear to me is "what is the vision" of this group? Jeff has mentioned his desire to conduct python classes. Is the vision of the group then to provide Python teachings? For me personally, I don't think I need such classes. Not that I don't want to learn, but I am the type of person who learn more by doing, not by sitting in classes.

Classes are fine for presenting new ideas/tools/technologies, and I am not at all opposed to them, but to make them the main activity of the group, it might end up holding back the group's potential. I think the main activity of the group should be geared to working on projects.

One of the hallmarks of successful user groups are projects that were born out of them. In the age of internet, we don't necessarily need to sit in one room to work on a project collaboratively. And other user groups have been doing this successfully.

By doing projects (or simply going through the exercise to define a project to work on), it will level the playing field for all group members. It will soon be apparent who is interested in what. That way we can move forward in a more focused manner. Don't worry too much about knowledge distribution, the more experienced members will soon be mentoring the newer ones within the context of the project.

If we need to conduct introductory classes to educate new users, it should be done towards a goal of helping out with the main project. This way, even new members can be productive and start contributing to the project.

Ok, enough motivational stuff, now on to the project itself. Let's use this thread to compile potential project ideas. I'll start:

ProjectIdeas

- I can go on, but more importantly, what do y'all think so far?

Brad's reply

I like the idea of jointly working on projects, though I think that should be a spinoff for those who are interested, rather than the entire focus of our meetings. For the regular monthly meetings, I'd like to see a mixture of planned topics and spontaneous discussion, maybe a 50/50 ratio. Among planned topics might be the status of any projects that are being worked on outside the monthly meeting.

Here are some topics I'd like to see on the agenda in the future:

MeetingAgendaIdeas