Our November meeting (previously scheduled for November 3rd) is postponed.

We are looking into a new location (Robert Half in Oakland), as well as discussing continuing to hold our meetings at our existing location (New Horizons in Pleasanton).

Unfortunately, we won't be able to finalize details with either location by this Tuesday.

I hope to know something this week, and to have the November meeting scheduled for some time next week (the week of November 9th).  I will provide as much notice as possible.

For the past few months, we've met at New Horizons in Pleasanton.  Unfortunately, our contact within New Horizons left the company to pursue other opportunities.  I've got a call in to the branch to see how that affects our group... but have yet to hear back.  At this point, I'd say the chances of us continuing at New Horizons border on slim.

This may be a mixed blessing.  New Horizons had a good facility for us.  But I'm afraid the location itself might have been a bit too far east in the East Bay.  Attendance over the last few meetings has been sparse at best.

So where does that leave us?

I've been talking to Robert Half in Oakland.  During a recent job search I registered with them, and the recruiter noticed my affiliation with the User Group and offered up their training room as a potential meeting location.

We're still working out some logistical issues (such as who at the office would be willing to wait around until our meetings were over)... but assuming we get that settled, it could be a good thing.  The Oakland location is more "central" East Bay and might be more appealing to more East Bay folks.  The actual address is 1999 Harrison Street, Oakland CA 94512.

Any thoughts?  Would an Oakland meeting location be more convenient?  If you've not attended the meetings in Pleasanton, would the likelihood of your attending increase with this location?  And since nothing's carved in stone yet... any other thoughts on a possible location?  Thoughts more than just a city... but if anybody knows of an actual facitilty (a company or a university for example) that we might be able to use, I'd be more than happy to follow up with somebody there.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback.  As news becomes available, I'll keep you all updated.

Needless to say, this -may- affect our next scheduled meeting (Tuesday November 3).  But again, as soon as I know something, you will too :)

Thanks!

Dan Wilson just blogged on the Model-Glue site about the idea of doing an intensive training over 2 days (weekend) on Model-Glue 3.

From the blog:

"We've been knocking around the idea of a roving Model Glue training center. We've already done this in Claremont, CA to members of the Inland Empire ColdFusion User Group and folks got a lot out of it. That particular course was done over a single day, to prove out the material and to be useful to the IECFUG.

For the next phase, the vision would be to travel to an area and run a practical, intense training in OO and Model-Glue 3 over a weekend.

We want to take a shot out there and see which parts of the country were interested in being first in having this training. So if you think 4 - 8 people would be interested in hanging out for a weekend and learning some good OO and Model Glue stuff, leave a comment on this post.

We'll take a week or so to get a plan together and then follow back up with more details."

If you think there'd be enough interest in the East Bay (or even the Bay Area), leave a comment on the blog at http://www.model-glue.com/blog/index.cfm/2009/10/14/ModelGlue-Training-In-Your-Town

Big thanks to Mark Aplet (http://www.visual28.com) for donating his time to the group and helping us out by desiging a new logo for us.  If you haven't seen it yet, look up :)

I love what Mark did here.  The East Bay doesn't really lend itself well to a landmark-type icon (whereas our sister group can easily use the Golden Gate Bridge), yet Mark was able to come up with a visually appealing icon that still represents who we are.

He's provided me with the image in a few different formats, including a vector version that would work well for shirts.

Anybody interested in shirts? :)

Once again... big BIG thanks to Mark.  Please keep him in mind if you need a graphics person for your next gig (or know somebody who might).

I'm very happy to announce that on September 12th, the lovely Mrs. James Morrow gave birth to our newest (and youngest) UG member.

Ilyana Morrow weighed in at 7lbs, 5oz and both Mom and baby (and Dad) are doing great.

Please join me in congratulating the entire Morrow family.

Our October meeting would have fallen on October 6th (first Tuesday in October).

However, with MAX 2009 running October 4-7, I'm afraid that most of the folks who would have come out to the meeting would be taking in the learning (and maybe even some drinking) down in L.A.

East Bay CFUG vs. MAX... MAX wins.  This year.  Next year though, we're going to be huge.  People will opt out of MAX because they'd rather come to one of our meetings.  You'll see :)

That would make our next meeting Tuesday, November 3rd.  No topic yet, but once we get one set, I'll post it to the Events section.  What I can tell you is that we'll be doing our bi-annual software raffle.  Be present to enter to win Adobe software worth up to $2100, for PC or Mac.

After November, we'll reconvene in February 2010.  Our December meeting would be too close to Thanksgiving, and our January meeting too close to New Year's.  So not only will November be our big software giveaway, but our end-of-year bash to boot.

If you have suggestions for a topic for the November meeting (or any future meeting), please comment or drop me a line directly.