We have a special guest speaker. Chris Schaefer of Sarasota Software Engineers (fmrly SunJUG) will give a talk! 

Experiences Leading a User Group

Abstract
User groups are a great way to get out and network with other people in the industry locally, listen to presentations and participate. User groups are also similar to open source projects as community members and their contributions drive the group’s success. Contributions could be in form of presentations, attendance, event coordination help, sponsorships, and anything else that benefits the group as a whole.

I took over as the leader of the “Sarasota Java Users Group” (SunJUG) at the end of 2013, which as of 2015 has evolved into the “Sarasota Software Engineers User Group” (SSEUG).  Having no prior experience organizing a user group, a number of lessons have been learned and many changes have been made along the way.

During this talk we will walk through the timeline from when I first became involved as the organizer, the good, the bad and where we are now. Not only will we look at my experience with the organizational aspect of leading a user group but also how group members can play an active and important role just as with an open source project.