The Joy of Boot Camps

Almost 10 days have passed since the Melbourne Developer Boot Camp, but the feeling of being part of an enthusiastic and growing community of CiviCRMers "down under" is still strong. It was great to have the opportunity to roll up our sleeves and work through some issues with Dave and Lobo that can help make our use of CiviCRM all the more effective. It was a chance to not only get a better understanding of the inner workings of the code and its frameworks, but also to develop friendships and an understanding of how we can all best contribute to the ongoing development of this great piece of software (particularly those of us in the Joomla! community). It was also an opportunity to discuss the issues our clients have run into using CiviCRM, support the Foundation's ongoing development (both financially and personally) and provide some case studies and demonstrations of how our clients are using CiviCRM effectively (particularly CiviMail and Custom Searches) and show how the SMS component we have developed works (building on some orphaned code in CiviCRM). Of particular interest for me was seeing how the diverse range of non-profit and for profit organisations are making CiviCRM part of their membership/relationship management solution. It is exciting to see the momentum that is being generated by large users getting on board. If you get the opportunity to meet up with Dave and/or Lobo and their team, I can highly recommend it. The Melbourne Boot Camp ended up being an enjoyable mix of user training and developer training, with the seeds of a thriving "down under" CiviCRM community being firmly planted. Many thanks to Catholic Super for your great catering and venue. CiviCRM 2.1 is sounding hot! Thanks Lobo, Dave and your development team!