During the december 2011 sprint in The Netherlands we discussed a different approach to the developer training sessions. We wanted to bring the approach in line with the user and administrator training sessions developed during the sprint following CiviCon London 2011. In short this means we do not try to focus on dealing with all aspects of CiviCRM but focus more on the needs of the participants. The aim is not to learn all there is to learn but to learn enough to get started.

There are various CiviCRM events coming up in London this February, indeed there is 'something for everyone' regardless of your level of experience and familiarity with CiviCRM.  If you can't make it over to the US this April, you should definitley consider participating in one or more of these events...

We've been offering CiviCRM consulting and hosting on a per-client basis for some time now, and as we have grown, we have started to feel the need for greater automation and consistency in our hosting offerings and contracts. Koumbit is currently in the midst of developing a comprehensive hosted CiviCRM offering, with the support of a few courageous clients.

This August 31st and September 1st we are running two CiviCRM trainings: one for developers and implementors and one for users and administrators.

For the past two days Michael McAndrew and I have been working on a training program for CiviCRM. We haven't finished it, but feel free to take a look at what we've done so far in this Google doc.

At the last user and admin training in London we decided to create exercise books to accompany the training. The idea was to move from an online format to a printed format, and we used the same tool that we use to create 'CiviCRM: a comprehensive guide': Booki.

Eli Beckerman is the second winner of a copy of Using CiviCRM from Packt Publishing. Eli is excited about the potential of CiviCRM to organize bottom-up transformations to deal collaboratively with the many crises facing the world today.

Packt has also selected a runner-up in its contest: an experienced CiviCRM user from the City Bible Forum, ken, will get a downloadable eBook copy of the book.

Here's some background on Using CiviCRM from Packt's site:

What you will learn from this book:

Sheila Burkett is the first winner of a copy of Using CiviCRM from Packt Publishing. Packt is running a promotional contest where you just have to post into the forum or email them to qualify to win a copy of the book.

Here's some more information about the book from the Press Release:

Using CiviCRM is the first commercially published book on CiviCRM, and came out in February 2011. It will teach readers to build a CRM that conforms to their needs and to integrate it with Drupal or Joomla!. Written by Brian Shaughnessy and Joseph Murray, this book will assist readers in developing an integrated online system that handles contacts, donations, event registration, bulk e-mailing, case management, and other functions such as activity tracking, grants, reporting and analytics.

We are super pleased to annouce CiviCRM developer and implementor training in London this May 18th and 19th in partnership with the CiviCRM core team.

We're just back from the first UK CiviCRM user group meeting of 2011, hosted by Circle Interactive http://www.circle-interactive.co.uk in Bristol.

An engaged group of users and a lively discussion on growing the CiviCRM community. We'll be holding more user group meetups throughout the year in Bristol, London and Manchester.

In addition there are two training events coming up.

Bristol, 16 March - Introduction to CiviCRM