[Chicago] Shall ChiPy have a "project night"?

[Asheesh Laroia]

Hey ChiPy folks! I'm a vagabond Python community organizer, and in a diff 
thread, Brian mentioned my idea that ChiPy host a thing called a project 
night. So I thought I'd take a moment to elaborate and see what y'all 
think.

As context:

Project nights are user group meetings where attendees come with their 
laptop computers and a desire to work on something Python-related. These 
kinds of meetings are often the first thing that user groups add when they 
want to become more welcoming to newcomers. They're intended to be 
open-ended, social, and inviting. No agenda, just encouraging people to 
work on whatever they'd like and/or find other people to work with.

I explain more here: http://user-groups-beta.openhatch.org/#project-night

I'm on a mission to help more Python user groups be more interesting and 
welcoming to newcomers, so I thought I'd see here what people think. 
First, a quick request; I'm trying to gauge interest, so if you would like 
this sort of meeting, reply to me <asheesh at asheesh.org> with:

+1


The event is pretty easy to run; it requires finding a venue with laptop 
space, and then making a sign-up page that has some friendly, inclusive 
language. (And you can even copy other groups' sign-up pages if you click 
on the above link to find samples.)

Some user groups (like Boston's) run one project night and one 
lecture-style meeting night monthly. I would say, try doing one first, see 
how ChiPy likes it, and then dream about committing to a frequency.


So, second -- if there's someone on the list willing to be the organizer 
of such an event, please stand up. (-: If not, I'll have to call on 
someone. (-;

I'm on the list, and happy to discuss the idea further and take questions 
about how it works, what the goals are, etc. Hopefully many of those are 
answered at the link I gave, but who knows; that's why it says, "beta".

-- Asheesh.