Attracting new people

[martindilling]

Just adding this so we have a thread to write and discuss ideas on how we could attract new people to our meetups.

• Chip in for a "thing" to have a give-away at the meetup (Raspberry Pi for example). Maybe a raffle where people buy tickets, to cover the "thing"?

[garethellis36]

• Plug our meet-ups at related Oxford-based usergroups, e.g. Drupal, WordPress, maybe even Ruby and/or JSOxford?
• Attend and plug at other nearby PHP usergroups, e.g. PHP Berkshire

[garethellis36]

I spent some time talking about this at PHP UK with various people. A couple of things to consider:

• Location: our meet-ups are not within easy walking distance of the train station, or even central bus stops. This may be a disincentive to a) people who would be traveling in from outside Oxford by public transport and b) people who work in Oxford and who need to take public transport home afterwards. If we can source a suitable location in a more central position, this may help.
• Sponsorship: this ties in with the above, as we may need to pay for a venue. Recruitment companies are often willing to sponsor user groups.
• Timing: a 7.30pm start may not be ideal for people who work in Oxford but finish work at 5.30/6. We do need to give those who live outside and travel in time to make it for the start, but perhaps a 7pm start could be considered?

Interestingly, I also spoke to Ben Foxall (organizer of JSOxford and formerly of WO) who said that JSOxford went through a similar period where they had small numbers at meet-ups. Regularly having good speakers/events helped them grow the group.

@olorton @ascii-soup @liquorvicar @mcidahechi

[mcidahechi]

+1 for location closer to the train station, earlier start wouldn't be a show-stopper for me.

I know @olorton is a very busy man - aren't we all - but I do think a prompt update on the @phpoxford and phpoxford.uk http://phpoxford.uk/ pages would help get some awareness. For example, if I were new to the group and went to the website, I would see that the 'next; one is in December. We do have the MeetUp though, and I think that helps a lot.

I would be happy to update the site, if I have perms... do I?

On 22 Feb 2016, at 10:49, Gareth Ellis notifications@github.com wrote:

I spent some time talking about this at PHP UK with various people. A couple of things to consider:

Location: our meet-ups are not within easy walking distance of the train station, or even central bus stops. This may be a disincentive to a) people who would be traveling in from outside Oxford by public transport and b) people who work in Oxford and who need to take public transport home afterwards. If we can source a suitable location in a more central position, this may help.
Sponsorship: this ties in with the above, as we may need to pay for a venue. Recruitment companies are often willing to sponsor user groups.
Timing: a 7.30pm start may not be ideal for people who work in Oxford but finish work at 5.30/6. We do need to give those who live outside and travel in time to make it for the start, but perhaps a 7pm start could be considered?
Interestingly, I also spoke to Ben Foxall (organizer of JSOxford and formerly of WO) who said that JSOxford went through a similar period where they had small numbers at meet-ups. Regularly having good speakers/events helped them grow the group.

@olorton https://github.com/olorton @ascii-soup https://github.com/ascii-soup @liquorvicar https://github.com/liquorvicar @mcidahechi https://github.com/mcidahechi
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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub #6 (comment).

[garethellis36]

The website is this repo, but I don't think anyone except @olorton has write permissions at the moment.
https://github.com/phpoxford/phpoxford.github.io Ditto Meetup

On a related note I have been trying to line-up some speakers myself. We have possibles for March & June, a definite for (TBC) and a definite for April.