The results of the UK meetup survey that we recently conducted are available in an Excel workbook: www.darren-ferguson.com/media/78173/survey.xls

In Summary:

The most popular venue for a meetup is London with 38% of the votes, Midlands/Birmingham was 2nd with 15% of the votes. The other options covered 6% or less of the votes. We can conclude that there is definitely demand for a London meetup and possibly one in Birmingham also.

Most people want the meetup to be ASAP or in August.

Most people don't care which day of the week the meetup happens on though Mon-Thurs is preferred to Friday.

Most people are prepared to contribute up to £20 to the cost of a venue - though obviously it should be kept free if at all possible.

A high majority of people want an all day meetup.

At the meetup people would most like: Demonstrations, Beers/Socialising, General Networking, Presentations and Guest stars from the Umbraco core.

Some interesting answers in the other/please specify boxes:

Meetup shouldn't start too early so those travelling from a long way away don't have to get up stupidly early.

Building an app during the meetup.

I also noticed that some people want formal conf/format and some people don't feel that will suit.

What next?

Bearing in mind all of the above.

I propose a London meetup on Thursday 6th August 2009. There may be a demand for other meetups elsewhere, but someone else will have to take the lead on that one.

We'll run it from 11.30am until 4.30pm - moving to a pub/bar after 4.30 for informal drinks networking. you can just attend the drinks if you don't want to do a whole day.

We'll need a venue. Let's try and get one for 20 people. If you can help please post here or drop me an email. I do have one lead from the survey so I'll get in touch with the individual concerned.

The venue needs: (good) WIFI, projector, seating. I say we don't bother with refreshments people can arrange themselves.

Sample Agenda

The following is off the top of my head (I really want input/suggestions on this). I'm trying to have the morning more formal and the afternoon/evening less so. Any suggestions how to collaborate on the agenda?

11.30am - Arrive - Introductions (around the table who you are, who you work for, what you are working on).

11.45am - Codegarden 09 recap

12.15am - Presentation slot

1pm - Lunch

2pm - Presentation Slot

2.30pm - Presentation Slot

3pm - Group activity -

Open Space (maybe just 1 or 2 sessions depending on the number of people - might not work I dunno).

3.45pm Group activity -

Open Q&A (what do you need to know about Umbraco, what could be improved).

OR package show off.

4.15pm - Closing comments.

4.30pm - Pub/Networking event.

In order for the event to go ahead

This week

We'll need some people to present (including the codegarden recap). Please volunteer here (or mail me) within the next week and try and suggest something cool with a bit of a wow factor. If we get more presenters than slots then I'll open another online poll so people can vote for the presentations they want to see.

Next week

Once a more solid agenda is posted we'll look to get some commitment from atendees. We'll need to know whether people plan to attend morning, afternoon, evening or the whole meetup. I guess we should aim for 10-15 people who want to spend a day at the meetup if we don't get that commitment I guess we revert to an informal evening session in the pub. A few people have said the whole idea of a structured meetup is way too formal and this might prove to be the case.

Its not just geeks

It would be great if any of you could persuade your end users/project managers to come along for the drinks.

Finally

This isn't my meetup! If no-one feeds back on the stuff above then nothing will happen. I'm not running this, just trying to get the ball rolling and make sure any meetup is what people really want. I'm happy to act as a co-ordinator/facilitator but please get your creative juices flowing and start suggesting ways to make the meetup fun! Help with the agenda is paticularly important.

Finally Finally

if you read this, please tweet/email it to other people who may be interested. From the survey traffic I can tell that core/MVP tweets bring in the most traffic.