Australian Joomla enthusiasts last gathered in person for JoomlaDay Australia in August 2019 in Brisbane, Queensland. Plans were afoot for JoomlaDay in Melbourne in 2020, but— Well, we know how that year and the following panned out!

With the COVID restrictions, the city-based Joomla User Groups (JUGs) "amalgamated" as the Australian Joomla User Group (AJUG) and convened monthly online meetings. One benefit of the move online was enabling Australia-wide and international participation in the AJUG meetings. But we missed the camaraderie of the local JUGs and Australian JoomlaDays.

So the AJUG organisers decided to run Reconnect with Joomla this year, fittingly in Brisbane, over the weekend of March 15 to 17 at the offices of OPN 365.

Sessions

Jamin Andrews, founder and CEO of event sponsors Conetix, opened the sessions on Saturday by demonstrating the Plesk Joomla Toolkit, a Joomla-specific alternative to cPanel for managing Joomla websites. Jacqui Blanch from DigiHearth extolled the benefits of "storytelling from the user's perspective" when designing sites.

Terry Pollard from Irata Web Solutions demonstrated an extension for migrating WordPress websites to Joomla and explained the Joomla platform structure and hierarchy and what developers need to look for when coding overrides or components.

Jeff Wilson from BizzDesign showed how to boost Google ranking with backlinks, content, reviews, and social media. Nathan Morrow, from Snaffleweb, demonstrated how he builds Joomla websites using YOOtheme and LESS.

Greg Taylor presented U3A (University of the Third Age) Brisbane's Management Information, Membership, Classes and Payments System, which he developed using the Sourcerer plugin from Regular Labs to deliver dynamic PHP pages in Joomla.

And Stuart Robertson from OPN 365 closed the sessions on Sunday with collaboration case studies among Australian Joomla designers and developers.

Between Saturday and Sunday's sessions, there were round-table discussions on various topics, including resolving mailing errors, Joomla and AI, and how the Australian Joomla community can better communicate and collaborate.

Socials

As Joomlers would expect, Reconnect with Joomla wasn't all work. There was also "play" with drinks, nibbles and networking at OPN 365 on Friday afternoon and pub and restaurant dinners on Friday and Saturday evenings.

David Abraham, Neil Abraham from Abraham Multimedia's son, also gave us an amazing demonstration of Rubik's Speed Cubing.

Quotes

"It was nice to reconnect at Reconnect with Joomla." ~ Martin Beaumont, Magnetic Websites

"Joomla is such an awesome community, and I'm proud to have been part of it for almost twenty years. And it was so good to be face-to-face in a room together instead of online meetings." ~ Britt Ambrose, Britt Ambrose Design

"It was great to connect with the Aussie Joomla community. The sessions were informative and fun. You guys rock!" ~ Jacqui Blanch, DigiHearth

Thanks

Thanks to the AJUG organisers for running Reconnect with Joomla, Conetix for sponsoring it, OPN 365 for providing the venue, and Linux Australia for supporting the event. Thanks also to Henry Mencia for designing the Joomla Brisbane 2024 t-shirt.

But most of all, thanks to everyone who reconnected and contributed to the event's success.

Next Year

AJUG and event organiser Stuart Robertson from OPN 365 commented at the close of Reconnect with Joomla, "It's good to see that our goal of community and collaboration has restarted."  

Fellow organiser Nathan Morrow added, "It was great reconnecting with everyone again. We've begun planning for next year, and I've already booked a location in Melbourne." 

On a personal note, I thoroughly enjoyed Reconnect with Joomla in Brisbane and look forward to reconnecting with fellow Australian Joomla enthusiasts again next year!