The Joomla User Group has always been a meeting in person, but since 2020 things changed. Now it is also possible to have hybrid or online User Groups. And in this months JUG interview we share one of our online JUGs, the Website Design Company Owners User Group.

Where is your User Group located?

We are fully virtual.

For how long has this User Group been organizing events?

We started in June 2022

How many people are involved in organizing and how many visitors are joining your meetings?

We have three organizers,

• Robin Clapp - primary
• Joe Sonne
• Richard Gosler

And we have between 18-25 attendees every month.

Are your meetings in person, online or hybrid?

We are an online User Group and we use Zoom for our meetings.

How did your JUG evolve during the years?

We started as a virtual group in June 2022 and have been a monthly meeting every since. We meet the third Thursday of the month at 11 a.m. EST and lasting for 1.5 hours.

What topics are usually/mostly being presented at your meetings?

Our speaker presentation topics cover things that the members are interested in learning about such as migration, custom fields, overrides, extensions, and business practices.

Which topics have been popular lately to get information about?

Migration was huge at first. Lately they are more interested in business practices such as SEO, contracts, pricing, maintenance plans. Its all good - lots of great discussions.

What difficulties do you face organizing your JUG?

So far its been fairly straight forward. I think it helps that we keep the date/time consistent along with how we communicate it out.

What is your most precious meeting?

I wouldn’t say that we had one meeting that is better than all the rest. I would say that the best part of the meeting, in my opinion, is the 10 minute member spotlight section. This is a part of the meeting that each month is dedicated to learning more about a member. We choose a different member each time and let them talk about anything they want. It has been very well received and everyone loves hearing their personal stories as well as their Joomla stories.

All our meetings start with going around the room and allowing each member to say hello, who they are, where they are from, and to answer a quick question for the day. Members are so important to our group - its their meeting. We want to get to know each other. We want to provide an experience that is helpful to their development and needs. We want to become a community within the Joomla community that supports each other. Its so fun to see the relationships grow even though our members are from around the world brought together through the love of building Joomla websites for a living.

Do you need extra volunteers, or help?

Currently we have great help so I think we are all set.

Information on Joomla User Groups

• The Website Design Company Owners User Group has a Facebook Group
• Where to find Joomla User Groups near you: 
  https://community.joomla.org/user-groups.html
• Add your Joomla User Group event on the Joomla community event list: 
  https://community.joomla.org/events/submit-event.html
• How to start a Joomla User Group: 
  https://docs.joomla.org/Joomla_User_Group/FAQs_and_Rules_for_Submission
• Register your Joomla User Group: 
  https://community.joomla.org/helpdesk/user-groups-support/registration.html