First PyLadies Dublin of 2015 was a success!
I was getting a little be anxious after warming up from a ghastly blast of cold winter air walking up Shelbourne Road, and being greeted by Rob at the Irish Computer Society and showing me where our room will be for the first PyLadies Dublin meetup of 2015. Anxious because I was delayed in traffic and was 15 minutes late and yet I was the first one to arrive. Thoughts of “Will Mick and I be the only ones at the meetup?”. It felt like my worst fears are about to be realised after a successful launch back in October 2013.
Sambos & hot beverages thanks to @IrishCompSoc. #nomnomnom pic.twitter.com/y2iVYz8fq3
— PyLadiesDub (@PyLadiesDub) January 20, 2015
As the time ticks on, realising that wi-fi didn’t work but glad of the sandwiches and hot beverages kindly provided by Irish Computer Society, Mick and I discussed the future of PyLadies Dublin. It’s not a great use of my/our time if no-one or very few turns up. The whole point was the meetup for like-minded individuals to come along, code and chat about Python. Have people feel comfortable going to our meetups that they feel that not all techie meetups are that bad, and attend Python Ireland and other tech meetups around town.
Then one by one people showed up, some regulars, and a new face. I breathed out a sigh. After we introduced ourselves, we talked and they answered my questions and insecurities about the future PyLadies Dublin meetups. I needed help and everyone chipped with great suggestions and one big thing is, why don’t we have workshops? Which is totally doable.
So my plan is to
- send a survey around, and if you haven’t done it yet, please do and help send it on to others who came/might be interested in our meetup: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ZS-74k836zrZt8NalvkO87RNyNo_IV1TvAUqttjNlHc/viewform
- dis-continue use of the PyLadies Dublin mailing list (as I seem to be talking to myself a lot and duplicating a lot of posts), and primarily community using meetup.com, Facebook page and tweets.
If anyone is interested in helping me run/organise PyLadies Dublin, drop me an email via dublin@pyladies.com. It would be much appreciated.
We did chat about other stuff as well but not much coding was done, but was productive, check out our Hackpad notes, upcoming events are in there as well: https://pyladiesdublin.hackpad.com/PyLadies-Dublin-Jan-2015-Notes-ozFxnmsIWqs
A big shout out to people about http://irishtechcommunity.com/. #
If you want to join this community on slack (a more stylish IRC) which has channels covering games, development, diversity, events, design and more, ping me at dublin@pyladies.com, and I will add you.
Our next PyLadies Meetup is at Metricfire on Drury Street, Dublin 2. Beer and pizza will also be provided by Metricfire.