Every month, Liverpool’s .NET community meet at TLA’s city centre office for technical presentations, networking and pizza.
We asked the group’s founder, TLA’s own Joshua Duxbury to give us the lowdown on what people can expect and look forward to from future meet-ups.
What is Dot Net Liverpool and who is it for?
Dot Net Liverpool is a meet-up community group in Liverpool for technologists interested in Microsoft products and tools. We meet every month at 20 Chapel Street (home of TLA) for a technical presentation with pizza and drinks supplied by a sponsor, followed by a networking session.
What prompted you to create the group?
Dot Net Liverpool is part of the Dot Net Foundation consisting of 300 meetup groups internationally. When looking for Microsoft meet-ups near Liverpool the closest groups are in Manchester. A lot of people I met at these events commuted from outside of Liverpool to attend (including myself).
Despite having many developers working with Microsoft technologies Liverpool didn’t seem to have a group to bring everyone together. That is when I seeked support from other meetup group hosts such as Rik Garner and Pete Vickers that helped me understand what was involved and put me on the right road to starting up my own meetup community group.
What have been the topics discussed at the Meet-ups so far?
All of our past events can be found on our meet-up page. So far, we have hosted six events all on different topics. From reviewing feedback, our attendees have been impressed and left feeling that our group has provided them valuable insight.
The highlight for me is the socialising aspect; not only with the speakers but the community we have brought together. We have gained a reoccurring assortment of tech enthusiasts and it’s great to see attendees coming time and time again. From the most junior to the most senior, and even previous speakers, they find value in the meet-up.
What topics are on the agenda for future sessions?
We are welcoming Microsoft MVP Luce Carter to talk at our next event on 25 July who is presenting a talk on Xamarin for C# developers.
Are there any guest speakers you’d love to host in the future?
There are many speakers we would love to get into Liverpool in the future but just to name a few: Jon Skeet, author of C# In depth, and Dylan Beattie, the organiser of London Dot Net.
You’ve recently launched a new brand identity courtesy of the branding team at TLA. What can you tell us about it and why do you feel it represents what the group is all about?
The design team have done a wonderful Job. We have chose this design because of its simplicity but also the professionalism it offers.
Inside the logo are interconnecting lines (a bit like how the internet works today, connecting peers over a network). That’s exactly what our meet-up group is trying to represent on a social scale – bringing people together to learn, share and discuss technology advancements.
The Logo is easily transferable to all of our assets such a T-Shirts, posters and our website and is easily identifiable as Dot Net Liverpool.
What should people do if they want to know more?
Firstly, come along. Once a month you get a chance to meet some great people, gain some knowledge, have a laugh, drink and some eat pizza!
Our website links all our pages together such as Meet-up and Twitter, where you can find the latest information. Make sure to join/subscribe/follow our channels to find out when our next events will be taking place.
As Josh mentioned above, the next meetup featuring Luce Carter will take place on Thursday 25 July, from 6pm – 9pm, at TLA’s office on Chapel Street.