CiviDay

For the second time around, CiviDay was celebrated Cologne. Most of the twelve attendants were interested newbies and folks looking for a suitable CRM for their organisation.

The "hot topics" of the evening were:

CiviDay NYC was hosted by the National Urban League and Tadpole Collective. We came together for an afternoon of working and learning together, followed by presentations in the evening.

Everyone who attended appreciated the opportunity to be in a room with other community members to talk through issues and hear about the work that others are doing. We had a good mix of developers and administrative end-users that ensured everyone had someone to bounce their ideas off of.

Mit so einem großen Andrang haben wir nicht gerechnet: Bei 15 Teilnehmer.innen aus 10 verschiedenen Organisationen mussten wir sogar noch Stühle aus dem Nachbarraum dazuholen!

We had a awesome CiviDay 2016 in Amersfoort yesterday! A record 40 participants made me happy before the day even started :-) The Socialist Party was our host for the day, and they had prepared a morning session where they shared their experiences with CiviCRM, showed what they did and explained what they want to do in the future. A really impressive and inspiring session with the underlying message: there is so much to gain if you start using open source software, become part of a community and feel you can actually have an impact on your toolset!

Well, ok, not quite but I’m hoping that anyone who’s used CiviMail and message templates in anger will relate to the need for change and how CiviMail can become an asset rather than the elephant in the room.

For the past 2 years, the last Wednesday of each January has been earmarked for CiviDay, a worldwide effort to come together and promote all things CiviCRM. This year, CiviDay witnessed 26 events, from virtual meetups to all day affairs, across 13 countries, bringing together newbies and veterans alike to share stories and to learn about CiviCRM and what it can do for organizations everywhere.

CiviDay Cologne (or Köln, as the city is called in German) was a pretty lively gettogether of CiviCRM old-timers and newcomers. It was hosted by Forum Ziviler Friedensdienst and SYSTOPIA Organisationsberatung. With 16 participants it showed healthy interest in CiviCRM in (western) Germany. After all, this was the first meetup of its kind in the Cologne-Bonn area, and CiviCRM usage and community networks in Germany generally still have some room to grow. So we are already planning on follow-up user meetings since a strong community will be the key to CiviCRM's success here.

CiviDay Denver was hosted by Cividesk and T4T Colorado and welcomed nearly 40 attendees under beautiful, sunny, Colorado skies in a comfortable atmosphere within the training center of the Colorado Collaborative for Nonprofits. Participants came with different objectives in mind: some to learn more about the possibilities of CiviCRM, and some who are new users of the database were seeking clarity on certain functionalities. More experienced users were in attendance to convene with the Civi community and attend workshops that would dig deeper into the capabilities of CiviCRM.

CiviDay Paris, organisé par Cividesk, a accueilli ses participants dans un café associatif place de la République : un utilisateur vétéran de CiviCRM, une organisation dans le domaine de l'environnement, et des consultants du monde associatif.

This year's San Francisco Bay Area CiviDay meetup "felt like a family reunion," according to one attendee, and no wonder it seemed homey: its venue was the large but comfortable common space of a cohousing community in Oakland. Over 30 people (reportedly over 40 at the peak) filled the dining room chairs, including CiviCRM core team members, nonprofit workers considering CiviCRM for their organizations, current users, consultants and developers looking to integrate CiviCRM with their own products.

Hosted by Cividesk's Regional Account Manager Neil Planchon at Swan's Market Cohousing, Oakland, CA

CiviDay was an opportunity for Dave Greenberg, a CiviCRM founder, to look back at 10 years of CiviCRM, plus allow two presenters to talk about how CiviCRM let them support their organizations – James Meehan, for Bay Area Children’s Theater, and Josh Mailman, for NorCal CanciNet, WARMTH and Piedmont Yoga Initiative.

The event was attended by 42 people representing various organizations.

We had a great time in Dallas, Texas during CiviDay 2014.  We want to give special thanks to Improving Enterprises for continued use of their facility and Skvare for being the long-term organizer of the group.

We had a great event in Philadelphia.  BackOffice Thinking co-hosted the night with PhillyCAM.  PhillyCAM provided the space as well as the technology to live stream the event, so even those unable to be there in person, were able to participate.  All 11 attendees felt the session was packed with great insights and ideas, so much that we agreed to meet again and make this a quarterly meetup.  Some tips for newbies that were generated by the group were:  

I ‘discovered’ CiviCRM at the end of last year. Looking for an open source software for non-profit organizations. So, January 29th was my first CiviDay, the first meeting with CiviUsers and the people of CiviCoop. A half-day meet up, well organized bij CiviCoop in Apeldoorn. Informal and intriguing. All about to learn more about CiviCRM. I am impressed by the functionality that CiviCRM offers.

The North of England CiviDay Meetup, held in Manchester, went well with 14 people in attendance. These were mostly regulars but there were 2 people attending who are new to CiviCRM and wanted to learn all about it. This was also a special meeting where we showcased the latest amazing CiviCRM extensions. The extensions covered were;

Oliver Gibson - CiviVolunteer

Heather Oliver - CiviBooking

Jon-man Cheung - CiviHR

CiviDay in Bristol was an especially extended meet-up so we could run our Bristol themed Prezi introductory seminar for the first time to all the new attendees, nearly everybody was new!). Most of our usual attendees had made their apologies, but we still had twice the normal number. We had biscuits and fruit (which was a first) and a much larger room than we normally use for meet-ups.

Here is a picture of the co-working day we had in London for CiviDay, in which you should be able to see that we had two CiviCRM Core Team members...

You should be able to spot Tim Otten and Yashodha Chaku, although partly obscured by Jamie Novick, who organised the event, hosted at Gamesys, as kindly arranged by Andrew Tombs. 

Thanks also to Chanun Chirattikanon, of CompuCorp, for taking the picture.

Co-organized by Alternativas y Capacidades AC and Cividesk, CiviDay Mexico was very well attended with 30 people representing 19 organizations, most of them new to CiviCRM.

A half-day meetup where existing users and organizations evaluating CiviCRM were able to learn more about CiviCRM. Existing users Julie Riotte from the French Chamber of Commerce in Mexico and Gabriel Berrios from Alternativas y Capacidades shared their experience with CiviCRM.

CiviDay 2014 in Denver was for sure a resounding success!

With more than 55 registrants and a packed full-day program, everyone whether newcomer or experienced user learned a great deal about CiviCRM, networked with their peers, and got all their questions answered!

“CiviDay 2014” Meetup
Hosted by Electronic Frontier Foundation
San Francisco, CA
2014.01.29

CiviDay San Francisco landed itself last night inside the headquarters for Electronic Frontier Foundation, an apt place to launch the new year and learn about Civi’s accessible open source software. I was asked to take notes of the robust discussion that took place that evening. As I'm new to this platform, I took extensive notes, but be sure to enlighten me if needed.

With over 25 attendees, Portland, Oregon’s CiviDay event maxed out Free Geek's seating, creating a truly standing-room only event.

Hearing about #CiviCRM at Portland #CiviDay event at @freegeekpdx pic.twitter.com/76UHsIZcL2

Yesterday the New York City CiviCRM group was out in full-force to celebrate CiviDay, an international celebration of the worlds best constituent relationship management solution for Non-Profit, Advocacy and Political organizations. My company, Web Access, along with Rayogram co-hosted the event which was attended by 22 people which included implementers, end users and organization’s who were evaluating CiviCRM.

The CiviDay meetup in Berlin was organised by "Software für Engagierte e.V.", a german association of CiviCRM using organisations, who want to join forces in order to improve the localisation. And the event was a pretty good success: 12 participants representing 9 different organisations, most of them new to CiviCRM, showed up.