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In This Issue
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President's Corner
Community Activities
UG Leaders Summit
Codecamp Webcast
Note from the Editor
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Sponsors
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Microsoft

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Culminis
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 Happenings Around INETA NorAm

Chris Pels Amanda Murphy provides details later in this newsletter about several new programs for our membership that are the result of many hours of volunteer effort over the past several months. These first two programs are part of an effort to bring local developer communities together in a variety of formats so they can learn from one another. We are excited about these new programs and look forward to your feedback.


Regional User Group Leadership Summits
The Northeast Regional User Group Leadership Summit will kickoff the series on Sunday June 11th at the Microsoft Waltham, MA office immediately prior to TechEd 2006. The program brings people together in person to exchange information and ideas. This replaces the single national level user group leader summit that has been held the past several years in conjunction with TechEd. We feel a more focused regional summit will provide greater benefit to each local community and involve more people throughout the year than a single summit. Therefore, we will not be having the scholarship program for TechEd conducted last year so we can channel our volunteer hours and funds towards this new program. Look for additional summits in other regions going forward. I encourage user group leaders and other volunteers that assist in running user groups in the northeast region and elsewhere are invited to attend.

INETA Live! Series
Our new INETA Live! series kicks off on Wednesday 3/22/2006 at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time. The series compliments the Regional User Group Leadership Summits by bringing people from throughout Canada and the United States together at one time to learn and share ideas on a particular topic. Let us know what topics you want to discuss and if you would be interested in moderating a session.

Volunteers Needed
If you would like to help INETA and your fellow user group leaders and members for one project or on a regular basis please contact Nancy Mesquita at nancy.mesquita@ineta.org. As always please let me know if your have any ideas or feedback that we can use to help the user group community.

Chris Pels
President, INETA NorAm
chris.pels@ineta.org

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 Activities for You (With FREE stuff!)
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Amanda Murphy INETA User Group Leadership Summit
User Group Leaders today faces many challenges such as promoting your group, financing, engaging existing members, recruiting speakers, finding new sources of content, leveraging local Microsoft relationships; etc. The New England INETA user groups along with INETA, in hopes of building a more close knit community, invites you all to join us on Sunday June 11th, prior to the start of TechEd 2006 to explore, share and learn about what has worked and what resource are out there. You are not alone, we know your pain!

The agenda for the summit will include peer to peer workshop and sessions to address some of the key concerns and issues related to running a user group. As a follow-up to last year’s hugely successful INETA User Group Leadership Summit, the New England INETA User Groups will host this event in the hope of that we can all learn from one another to improve the user group experience for our attendees as well as ourselves. The sessions are open to all leaders, both local and afar. If you are currently involved with a user group, in a leadership role or not, want to get involved, or even looking to start one then you will get powerful direction in the course of the sessions. If you read this far, you know this is for you.

For more information or to reserve your seat please contact LeadershipSummit@Ineta.org.


INETA Live! - So You Want to Hold a Code Camp

INETA Live! INETA is pleased to announce the first event in the new series entitled INETA Live!

INETA Live will provide user group leaders and members with an opportunity to discuss a variety of topics oriented towards improving your local developer community. The kickoff for this series will be Wednesday, 3/22/2006 and will be followed by additional events in the coming months.

So You Want to Hold a Code Camp?

Code Camps have enjoyed unprecedented success over the past two years as an informal way to bring developers together to share code. Have you held a Code Camp in your area and want to improve the next one? Would you like to learn how to organize the first Code Camp in your area? Join Thom Robbins, Microsoft Northeast Region Developer Evangelist, and Chris Pels, Boston .NET User Group Leader founders of the Code Camp concept to discuss best practices for building a successful Code Camp. Topics will include What is a Code Camp? How do you get speakers? What are options for a facility to hold the event? and more! This will be a discussion where attendees will have the opportunity to contribute by sharing their experiences and also to get their questions answered.

Join us March 22nd, 2006 at 3PM EST as we kick off our new INETA Live series with this great presentation. We will following this session up with additional monthly presntations with topics such as:
  • How to get Funding for My User Group?
  • How to Grow my User Group?
  • User Group Marketing 101
  • Free Training 123!
  • How to Better Manage User Group Communications (website, newsletter, etc...)
In addition to these topics, we are very interested in what you want to see presented. So if you have an idea for a topic you would like to see, please let us know by filling out this form.

Intended Audience:
User group leaders, members, or community enthusiasts that are interested in hosting or running a code camp within their region.

Event Registration Link:
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032291526&Culture=en-US


Amanda Murphy
INETA NorAm Vice President - Community Activities
amanda.murphy@ineta.org
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 From the Editor
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Scott Spradlin I know, yet another newsletter that we don't have time to read. Going forward, we are going to attempt to get the newsletter back on a regular monthly schedule and only bring you information that helps you be better equiped as a local user group leader or that brings value to the user group community as a whole. Stay tuned to up-coming issues and give us your feedback. We really do listen.

So many great things are happening at user groups around the world, we'd like to share those success stories with everyone. Send news (and pictures) from your user group so we can include it in a future newsletter!

Archived newsletters are available on the INETA website at www.ineta.org/newsletters.

Scott Spradlin
INETA NorAm Vice President - Marketing
scott.spradlin@ineta.org
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Copyright 2006 by INETA
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