Throughout the past few months I’ve been participating in the Joomla Marketing Team, and I have been in contact with many Joomla users around the world. At the same time, my son got admission to a medical college in the Philippines. I accompanied him on a college visit recently but I also wanted to meet Joomla people in the Philippines to share some knowledge and our passion for Joomla. After doing a little research I found that the once active JUG Philippines had become inactive. So, I set a goal: I decided to make my recent trip to the Philippines useful for the Joomla community by getting this JUG back together.

While planning my journey, I came in contact with an active and enthusiastic Joomla user named Kevin Ochoa. Together we started planning the JUG Philippines. Kevin and I had a great time organizing and carrying out this meeting. He was a great help and his efforts were greatly appreciated. With his help we conducted a JUG meeting and a seminar, which was quite successful.

Joomla Seminar at Roosevelt College

A day before the JUG Meeting we conducted a Seminar at Roosevelt College, Marikina on December 15th, 2014. The event was overwhelmingly successful. Approximately 30 students and faculty members attended the event, and our goal was to raise Joomla awareness and attract new Joomla users and community members. We also focused on how Joomla can be used to create a career.

JUG Philippines

The next day we held a JUG meeting in Makati City. The people who were part of the JUG meeting had different interests - some of them were coders, some of them were web designers, and few of them were new users. We tried to discuss  topics which covered the interest of all the people present there.

There were three presenters: Kevin Ochoa, Jaypee Lita and myself. We emphasized the revival of the JUG Philippines and discussed how to keep the group active. Kevin and I both shared success stories on using Joomla to build a career, and we shared ideas on making contributions to Joomla. There was also a healthy discussion about Joomla features that make it the best CMS on the market.

I tried my best to motivate everyone and we also planned  for a JoomlaDay in the coming months. People are so excited to have this group be active again, and I am sure they will do their best to make the JoomlaDay a successful event.

As a group, we’d like to thank Kevin for his hard work making this event happen. We’d also like to thank the Mozilla community who offered us a place to conduct this meeting. My trip to the Philippines was quite successful. With the help of a lot of other people we revived the JUG and even talked about hosting a JoomlaDay Philippines in 2015.

I am glad that I could bring out the hidden love for Joomla among the attendees. I really had a great and unforgettable time and fun moments with people here. I am not sure if I will get a chance to visit Philippines  again, but I will stay in touch with all the Joomlers I met, and will keep sharing Joomla love and Joomla passion.