New software user group launched in Hereford

Herefordshire is quiet, very quiet. That's why I like living here, plenty of space and great for concentrating on software development. The only thing we haven't had until now is a developer's user group but that changed yesterday when Dave McMahon, John Price and Guy Smith-Ferrier rolled into Hereford to help us launch the Next Generation User Group (NxtGenUG).

NxtGenUg was formed by Richard Costall, Dave McMahon and John Price with groups initially in Coventry and Birmingham. The idea for the groups is to learn and develop Microsoft oriented skills in a fun way, with swag and free software.

Dave kicked off with an entertaining ten minutes on when we meet (7pm - 9pm, 3rd Monday of each month), where (Shire Hall, Hereford) and what we do (ten minute code nugget, main speaker, break for pizza and drinks, main speaker again and a final 10 minutes of swag giveaways). The first two meetings are free to non members but after that there is a £70 a year fee to help cover the costs of the venue, speakers travel costs, food and drink. We scrounge the swag from sponsors which normally includes t-shirts, software licences, mugs and generally all sorts.

Guy Smith-Ferrier then stepped up for the main talk which was an excellent and entertaining talk on 'Visual Studio 2008 IDE Tips and Tricks' and John Price played Father Christmas very well and threw out random swag.

Richard Wilde, another local developer and friend is running it on an ongoing basis with me and we'll be working at getting the numbers up, booking quality speakers and bringing in more swag.

We did toy with the idea of setting up in Ludlow but couldn't find the right venue and it's even sleepier (although better looking) than Hereford. With Worcester, Gloucester and Wales all pretty close to Hereford the group has a better reach.

Come along and say hello and get involved with the UK Developer Community at NxtGenUG Hereford!