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I am the manager of the Joomla! User Group New England. We had our first meeting in March 2008, and we've grown from a mailing list of 2 (Sam and me) to almost 100 people in our first year.

So, how did we do it? 

The Mechanics

1. Make sure there's no existing Joomla User Group for your region. Chances are, there isn't.

2. Read the FAQ. Note that you will need a primary and secondary contact for your group, plus a group email address. You can't be a virtual group. You must have meetings.  (See below about meetings.)

3. Fill out the form.

That was easy. Now, some of the harder things to worry about.

Meeting Flavor

Do you want a laid back, informal meeting? Do you want a more structured meeting? Thinking about flavor will help you determine times and places.

If you want nothing structured or formal at all, maybe you're thinking about a lunch or a beer or coffee or whatever. Think about a bunch of developers meeting in a bar for beer -- that's probably better suited for 6 PM than 9 AM. A bunch of developers could meet at a coffee shop at 9 AM.  Keep in mind that "informal" often means that someone has to walk into this situation, potentially knowing no one, and introduce themselves around -- a very uncomfortable situation for most geeks I know. So think about a way that you might help we that are socially awkward like that.

If you want a more formalized feeling, you're not meeting in a bar or a restaurant or coffee shop. You're meeting at a company that will donate a meeting room, or a local college or university, a training center, or some other formalized meeting space, preferably with a projector for a laptop.  You might have a "real" agenda, i.e. things to cover in fixed periods of time. You might have guest speakers plus some generalized discussion. These types of meetings can happen anytime of the day or night, but in general, an evening meeting feels a little more laid back than a daytime meeting. It may be possible to get a company meeting room between 9 AM and 5 PM, but a university room might be more likely to be available at 6 PM.

Once you pick a flavor, think about times and places.

Meeting Time

Meeting times are tricky things. If you hold meetings during the day, you'll get complaints from people who want to come, but their boss won't give them time off and a night meeting would be better. If you hold them at night, you'll get complaints about how childcare and evening activities are issues, and you should really hold meetings during the day.

So, pick what works for you, as a meeting manager, as you should attend EVERY meeting unless you have a darn good reason why you can't (you're on your deathbed or you're at a Joomla conference might be the rare excuses). Lunch meetings are good if they're held somewhere where people can eat. Meetings first thing in the morning or last thing in the day are good too, so people go to work late/early. Evening meetings have a different, more casual and relaxed dynamic typically.

The meeting time should be the same EVERY MONTH. You should have meetings like clockwork. Don't skip, don't cancel, unless you ABSOLUTELY must do so, otherwise your group feels "unreliable".

Meeting Place

Where you meet also determines the type of meeting you have. Some user groups are a bunch of developers meeting for a beer in a bar somewhere. Others are more formal, rigid presentations with projectors and Powerpoint.

Be aware if you're running a "meet in the bar" type of user group, you want people to get more out of this than just being a drinking club of some kind.  You want to think about how to avoid a "pick up" type of dynamic, where people are hitting on each other.  Personally, I wouldn't be too keen in going to a bar user group if I thought I was getting Joomla help, but all I got was geeks drooling all over me.  Ick. 

A more formal dynamic gives a more professional feel to things, but some may be turned off by powerpoint and projectors. Others may not feeling like coming because X is being covered this time, and you really want to hear about Y.

Meeting Agenda

After a few meetings, you might get a regular agenda of some kind in place. However, you should absolutely make sure you have an agenda for the first meeting. If the meeting wanders aimlessly, some people will be turned off and won't return. 

Meeting Attention-Getters

You should absolutely have food at every meeting. Bake cookies and bring them with you. Ask your membership to bring something. Get local sponsors to pay for pizza.  It's silly that food pulls people in, but it does.

And give stuff away!!! There are a ton of book companies out there who want to support user groups and will provide you with the occasional free book or regular free books. Check out O'Reilly, PeachPit, Packt, Pearson, and Wiley, to name a few. Put a logo linking to them on your website. Some of these also offer UG discounts, like 35% off all books purchased at their website.

Some will provide really outrageous giveaways. For example, Lynda.com will give the user group manager a free premium subscriber account (worth $375/year). This is so you can rant about how fabulous Lynda.com is, and so you can show good movies at your UG meetings.

Also contact some of the Joomla-specific template companies, extension developers, etc about donating a copy of something to raffle off or use on your own UG website. They're generally very supportive.

You can raffle these goodies off at your UG meeting, or you can REWARD those members who help you with the occasional free book or goodie.

Getting Members, Running the Meeting, and More

I'll talk more tomorrow about these topics.