On Thursday, October 30th Web Access, Lighthouse Consulting and Design, and The Association Development Group (ADG) hosted the first ever Albany area CiviCRM meetup. Since this was the first of its kind in the area we were unsure of what to expect. We could not have been more pleased at how the event unfolded.
We had a great turnout, almost everyone who had registered was able to make it. I attribute this to my co-sponsors Tony Mazzarella and Brian Shaughnessy and their connections in the local CiviCRM community. This event would not have been such a success if it weren’t for each of their participation in the planning and marketing of the event.
The meetup’s agenda included two presentations. The first was a case study presented by Brian Shaughnessy outlining a lead prospecting system that he is working on for a client. The second presentation was from the CiviCRM core team member Kurund Jalmi, who discussed some of the new features of the latest CiviCRM release.
After the presentations we broke off into two groups, more experienced developers and less experienced users and developers. I myself am very new to CiviCRM and was in the latter group. I was impressed at how welcoming the CiviCRM community is and how they are more than willing to answer even the simplest questions. Everyone participated and left knowing a little more than they did earlier in the evening.
As the meeting wrapped up there were conversations that continued. Especially with Kurund since he was only in the States for a short while (we were privileged to have him in attendance). I was excited when attendees came up to me telling me that they know someone that would be interested in attending the next meeting. This is exactly the type of thing we are trying to do. We want to create a thriving CiviCRM community in the Albany area where everyone can come, learn, and discuss CiviCRM.
In the future we plan on holding monthly meetings, however with the holiday season upon us we are combining November and December meetings into one. The next Albany area CiviCRM meetup will happen on Thursday, December 4th at 5:30pm. Please keep watch for more information as the date draws closer.
