How can we improve eXtreme Thursday?

It's approximately a year since we started XTC. In that year, we've had some very good meetings, but also some that were tiny and one that was just me enjoying a drink by myself...

Some thoughts on changes that might help:

Settle on a location

Kinsale's seems appropriate based on our experiences.

Select a main topic for each meeting

I'll propose a topic for the October meeting.

Schedule more frequent meetings

Might have an interesting counter-intuitive effect.

Note who's attending

We're getting a bit of this from meetup. Can it be improved? London does this by a wiki.

I'd love to hear other ideas. What would make this group more useful to you?

XTC-Boston - September 4, 2008 at Kinsale's

The September meeting will be:

* Thursday, September 4 from 6:30pm
* The Kinsale Irish Pub and Restaurant, 2 Center Plaza, Boston, MA 02108

Agile Bazaar FIT4Data presentation July 31

In several of our XTC meetings, we have discussed the use of Fit: Framework for Integrated Test, and another local agile group is holding an interesting related session at 6 PM July 31 on the MIT campus, in building E51, room 315.

In this session, Adrian Mowat will describe how he test-drives database migration code using a database tool layered on top of the Java implementation of FIT.

For a bit more description, see http://agilebazaar.org/.

XTC-Boston - August 14, 2008 at Kinsale's

The schedule is changing to the second Thursday for this month because the regular date would put it during the Agile2008 conference in Toronto, which some of our members will be attending.

The August meeting will be:

* Thursday, August 14 from 6:30pm
* The Kinsale Irish Pub and Restaurant, 2 Center Plaza, Boston, MA 02108

July 3 Meeting canceled

Something else has come up on my schedule, and I have no indication anyone else was planning to attend.

We'll try to meet in August!

XTC-Boston - July 3, 2008 at Kinsale's

The June meeting was light - just two of us, and I was late for it. But I had a good rambling talk with Jason, about story sizing and splitting, kanban boards, his experiences working at ThoughtWorks, my adventures in job-hunting, and assorted languages.

This month, we'll return again to Kinsale's, which is convenient for most of the regulars and has worked well in the past. If we finally settle on a recurring venue, this is likely to be it.

The schedule puts us very close to a major holiday, so people may be out of town. If it looks likely I'm going to be all alone, I might cancel. Please try to let me know if you plan to attend. If I decide to cancel, I'll put up a notice.

The July meeting will be:

* Thursday, July 3 from 6:30pm
* The Kinsale Irish Pub and Restaurant, 2 Center Plaza, Boston, MA 02108

XTC-Boston - June 12, 2008 at Tavern in the Square

The May meeting was small but pretty good anyway, at least in my opinion.

I arrived early and waited at the bar. I was delighted to discover that instead of peanuts at the bar, Felt had wasabi peas. Yum! Rumor is that Felt frequently has events on Thursdays with cover charge though, so it doesn't work as a permanent hangout.

Three of us (Don, Dave and Duane) met and discussed many things, including Python/Jython, Scala, FIT, computing in ancient times, and my job options (I'm still looking ...).

The schedule is changing to the second Thursday for next month because of a conflict I have for the regular date.

We're going to a place in Central Square, Cambridge that I recently saw work very well for a different group.

The June meeting will be:

* Thursday, June 12 from 6:30pm
* The Tavern in the Square, 730 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139