During Tech-Ed, Greg Low conducted a presentation on running User Groups. Well our local Canberra Windows User Group leader Dave Mackie, already thinking of walking, decided after viewing the presentation that it was time to walk.

Dave has been running the group for quite some time and unfortunately without much support. He does many of the presentations himself each month (which takes up more than enough time in learning), he sends out invitations, manages attendees, organises the food, arranges topics, updates UG site, etc. It's a LOT of work for one person.

So after hearing Dave's cry for help I put my hand up to help. The outcome is posted here on Dave's site. So I'll be more involved in getting the meetings going. We have already organised presenters until December (and no Dave isn't one of them) and have decided to also run meetings at lunch in the City(just like the dev user group). Topics/Presenters and location are below. So far we've received quite a bit of support from Microsoft and the other Canberra user group leaders, specifically Jeff Wharton. Microsoft are also sending us Windows Server 2008 Beta DVD's to distribute to meeting attendees so that should also help.

Canberra Windows User Group Future Topics
Sept - Scott Deakon from Microsoft on 'How Hot Fixes and Service Packs get delivered'
Oct - Jeff Alexander from Microsoft on 'Deploying High Performance and Scalable Networking with Windows Server 2008'
Nov - Rocky Heckman from Microsoft on Security - yet to be finalised

Time & Location: 2nd Tuesday each month
Lunch Time
King O'Malley's Irish Pub
131 City Walk, Canberra City
12:30 - 1:30 — Finger food and presentation

Evening
Microsoft Canberra Office
Level 2, 44 Sydney Avenue, Barton
17:30 — Pizza and networking
18:00 - 19:30 — Presentations

Until I figure out how to register people feel free to email me your interest and I'll add you to the list :-) (athena@dotnetsolutions.com.au)

So thank you to the ITPro's in Microsoft for offering your support. Lets see if we can build this group. Also a big thanks to Dave. He's kept the group going for so long we owe it to him to support him for a change.