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Coming up on June 27-28, there will be a Drupal Camp in Chicago. We have always enjoyed making the short trip to Chicago to interact with fellow Drupalers. 

This year, I have submitted a session about Revitalizing Local User Groups. I will be presenting what I have learned here in Indianapolis and try to help our community leaders to come up with better plans, more events, and just become more involved over all.

The Drupal User Groups are so important because they become your Drupal Community. If you don't have a strong Drupal presence in your local community, you will be hindered in moving forward with the CMS.

The beauty of open source is experienced at the local meetup groups. Fellow Drupalers share their experiences, modules, and give recommendations for others. Unless you are the biggest-baddest Drupal user in your area, you will always walk away with something new. If you ARE the biggest-baddest Drupaler (and if you want to continue to grow), then you need to put some work into finding others who will challenge you.

Many times the authority in Drupal within a community heads up the meetups. This is great because the majority of people who come to those meetups will learn something. But what does it do for the 'authority'? They will teach sessions for as long as they feel they are doing good for the community. But this role gets taxing. If that person can't show up, or gets tired of leading every month, then the entire group goes down.

This session will help to address this problem and incorporate some strategies that will help bring in new people, keep people interested, and remove some of the stress from the 'Managing Individual.'

Even if you don't sit in on my session, I hope you will come and see us at Drupal Camp Chicago!