Want to organise a software testing meetup? Part 2

Continued from Part 1.....

The only way I could think of making this work was by contacting organisers of successful meetups and finding out how they got started. I contacted Rosie Sherry of the Software Testing Club fame (STC) and Alex Higgins who organises the Reading Tester Gathering. Help does come from unexpected people sometimes. Alex by trade is a recruitment agent but does a lot for the testing community by regularly organising Reading Tester Gathering. Alex helped greatly by giving me tips on how to get started and suggested that I start with a name for the group. Sounds easy, but trust me it wasn't! I finally decided top go with Test Retreat UK. I created a LinkedIn group and invited select individuals to the group. Alex kindly referred suitable candidates from his contacts to the group. Unfortunately, everything went a little quiet after this. Rosie suggested that I announce a date for the first meetup irrespective of the agenda, as this might make the meetup noticeable.

I also needed to sort out the venue for the meetup before I could announce a date. Redweb was brilliant and had offered the use of their awesome Loading Bar for this event. That being sorted, I set a date for the first meetup and started to send emails, tweets and texts about it. Rosie kindly gave me rights on the STC meetup group which allowed me to create a meetup page. She then circulated details of the meetup to her contacts and also announced it on the STC site. My work colleagues at Redweb helped spread the word by tweeting about it. Through the wonders of social media there was quite a bit of interest generated about the meetup. John Stevenson (@steveo1967) who came to know about the meetup via twitter came forward with the suggestion that he could do a short 5 min presentation which would then facilitate an engaging discussion between the attendees.

Before I knew it, it was the day of the meetup! I was pleasantly surprised to see 4 people turn up in addition to my colleague and I. Everyone seemed very enthusiastic about the meetup and were eager to improve their skills/knowledge whilst forming a community of like minded testers. John's short presentation provided the needed fodder for an engaging discussion.  I met some great testers that evening and all in all the meetup proved to be very successful. So much so that I have now organised a second meetup on the 04/07/13.

When I first set out, organising a software testing meetup seemed like a daunting task to accomplish. However I have found that we have an amazing community of brilliant testers out there who are more than willing to help newbies like me. All it takes is to take the first step and before you know it you will be well on your way. Thanks to all the support I received, I have enjoyed organising an event more than I ever thought that I would. I hope to organise many more successful events in the future and hope to meet many many more testers.

Details of the second Test Retreat UK meetup can be found here: http://www.meetup.com/SoftwareTestingClub/events/125013292/

Want to organise a software testing meetup? Part 1

I love the idea of software testing meetups and have always wanted to attend as many software testing meetups as possible. However living in Dorset meant that if I wanted to attend a good one, I would have to be willing to make the tedious journey into London (or farther) and back. Usually after work. On a working day. Enough said!

The solution to this problem would be to attend a local meetup. I started searching high and low to see if there were any meetups nearby me but found none! I was a little disappointed at first and then imagined that someone or the other will start a meetup soon and started to wait patiently for this to happen. After all, there are atleast a hundred or so testers in the area, surely someone or the other would organise one soon.....and so I waited and waited and waited......and waited....

Until I remembered something that my Dad always used to tell me as a kid: "If you want something done your way, do it yourself". Haven't we all been told this by someone or the other? Then why is it that we forget this so easily? I realised that I could start one myself and was initially quite excited by this prospect. I love a good challenge and this seemed like a perfect combination of a challenge and my passion which is software testing.

I started researching into all the groups and meetups that already exist in the country. All of them seemed to be run frequently and were quite popular in the testing community. Some of the organisers were in fact accomplished speakers at conferences or were testing coaches. This meant that they had plenty of advertising for their meetups. I have been a silent participant of the online software testing community for a couple of years now. By that I mean that I read the various blogs, magazines or articles written by some of the influential testers out there and never attempted to make my presence known as I never thought it was necessary. So how can someone like me who does not have an online profile get enough interest generated in a meetup which is to be organised in the far corner of the country? Suddenly the exciting task started to seem all too daunting.

Continued in Part 2.......