First Agile Belgium Drinkup

Last week we had the first Agile Belgium Drinkup. An attempt to gather the belgian Agile community outside of the conferences ecosystem. Last wednesday, from the 17 people that registered online, 12 showed up.

Thanks to that drinkup, we had the opportunity to discover new faces, people we hadn’t seen before, either at conferences or other user group meetings. It didn’t take so many beers for Xavier to put post-its on the bar and facilitate a small improvised retrospective about this first drinkup.
Here are the insights and actions we have generated:

Every participant commits to try bringing someone who wasn’t at the first drinkup

For those who were there, don’t forget to convince a fellow agilist to come with you next time!

Merge the belgian community website domains

It has already been taken care of by Pascal. If you go to http://agilebelgium.org you will be redirected to http://xp.be, which will now be the one and only Agile Belgium community website.

Write a blogpost about the last drinkup

I think this is also being covered…

Find a venue with cheaper beers

The foodsquare was a nice place but the beers were a little expensive. A venue with cheaper beers and still close to major train stations would be appreciated.

Keep doing it in Brussels

Brussels is approximatively 1h or less by train from every major Belgian city, it seems like a good choice for a drinkup.

Organize next drinkup

Well, let’s take care of that right now! We decided to do these drinkups every second Wednesday of the month, it means the next one will be on the 13th of July. We will do it in the back room of the Delirium café near the Grand Place. Again, there is a fikket page so that we get an idea of the number of people that might show up:

http://abdup.fikket.com/

This is where all the drinkup events will be announced from now on.

As you can see we didn’t only drink beers. Following everything that emerged from this first edition of the Agile Belgium drinkup we can consider it to be a success. Next time, we hope you’ll join us!

ALE 2011 in Berlin, Germany

The Agile Lean Europe (ALE) network is a pan-European open network for people passionate about Agile and Lean practice and thinking.

We’re organising the ALE 2011 unconference which will happen from September 7-9 in Berlin.  And we would love you to come!

Our goal is to create a European melting pot of Agile and Lean practitioners with many diverse perspectives and influences.  It is intended as a cross-border, non-profit collaboration event for mutual learning and continuous improvement. We want you to participate!

We are reaching out to the European Agile & Lean communities to come and join us during these 3 days of learning and cross-pollination.

We break the habit!  Diversity is key!

  • We mix a traditional program with open space sessions, lightning talks and keynotes.
  • We invite you to bring your families, there will be a spouse and kids program!
  • We explicitly invite alien speakers who do not work in the software development domain.
  • We want the whole of Europe to join. We already have pre-registrations by people from 28 European countries.

How can you help?

Forward this invitation to your community members and ask if they’re interested to submit a talk and register as a participant.

How does your community benefit from sending representatives to ALE 2011?

  • You get a chance to pick up new ideas which you can spread in your community afterwards.
  • You get to meet a lot of interesting people which you can invite to your community events.
  • Your community gets visibility in the European Agile & Lean network.
  • You get a clearer view on the state of Agile & Lean across Europe.

You can find more information about ALE 2011 on our website or by following #ale2011 on Twitter.

In addition to the conference, we’re also starting some ALE Network initiatives.  One is creating a system which allows communities to invite speakers when they happen to visit their region.  You can find out more about other initiatives at the conference or on our ALE Network website.

We’re counting on you to help Europe take a next step in the world of Agile & Lean!

Agile Belgium Drinkup June 2011

Topic:

This is an informal meetup of the Belgian Agile and Lean community. Come after work and meet people you usually only meet at conferences. Anyone interested in Agile or Lean can join.

Add your name to the list to attend.

Location:

Foodsquare
Rue du Marché aux Herbes 120
1000 Bruxelles

Between Brussels Central station and the Grand’ Place.

See you there!