Melbourne

I've just returned from Attending the Melbourne Atheists society (<a href="https://home.vicnet.net.au/~atheist" target="_blank">home.vicnet.net.au/~atheist</a>), I was intrigued to see what the topics of conversation might be, and tonight was the turn of agnosticism, hard work for the speaker, preaching to the (un)converted as it were. The first thing that struck me aside from the wonky OHPís and prevalence of socks and sandals, was the age of the audience; does Atheism hold the same appeal to the elderly as religion? Does the steadfast belief in Science and practicalism hold the same appeal as faith in the older echelons of society? <br><br>As far as I could ascertain from the talk being an agnostic is being open minded about supernatural entities and the superiority of Science, whereas Atheists discount supernatural entities altogether, although the lengthy discussion that ensued after the talk gave the impression that perhaps the definitions are not as clear cut as that, and as usual with these things a battle of semantics raged. It reminded me of a passage (as many things do) from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy were the philosophers of a particular planet build a machine to tell them the answer to "Life, the universe and everything", when they get an unexpected answer it is made clear to them that they never really knew what the question was. If everyone has a differing opinion on what Atheism and Agnosticism mean then how can you have a balanced discussion on it? It's these sorts of arguments and discrepancies that have plagued the spiritual community for many years. If retaining an open mind on the origins of the world is Agnosticism, then I guess that's what I am, I wouldn't discount anyone's beliefs if I couldn't wholeheartedly disproved them myself. My final question is this, if we take Atheism as a negative, slightly pessimistic belief in nothing beyond the material world, and Agnosticism as a more optimistic, non-dismissive way of life, would Atheists still refuse to believe in a 'God' or a supernatural entity if it were proved without a shadow of a doubt by science that one existed?

Second interview with local zine dignitaries...

God knows when I last posted a personal post here, no reason why, just been stupidly busy, haven't been enough hours in the day...

It's been a while, I've moved countries, got a new band together, got my feet under the table and now it's time to tell everyone what's been going on.

Landing the opening slot is a daunting and unenviable task for any band, doubly so when you're an acoustic act at a rock gig, you have to work extremely hard to even get the audience to acknowledge your existence, let alone actually listen to you. Sacha Ion's unique voice with its equal measures of vibrato, warble, screech and heart-felt gentility performs a good job of gaining the interests of at least some of the small crowd slowly building at Ding Dong tonight; she earns respect and hopefully some fans.For a debut gig, Nights at the Abattoir are brimming with confidence, ability and great songs, their peculiar blend of Gothic Glam rapidly winning over the hearts and feet of the audience. Aside from the incredibly bubbly (and possibly drunk) keyboard player and the dapper vocalist, the bands guitarist seems to be in a world of his own, the stage lighting even marking him out differently. Discordantly soloing over everything or indulgently descending into messy sonic pools of layered effects, most of the time it doesn't really work or sit well over the good fun and straight forward gutsy stomp of the rest of the band, but at times he finds his own moments of genius, pulling out a solo or lick that compliments the song beautifully.Schvendes take to the stage ably assisted by a sound man who seems to accompany just about every medium sized WA band, and short of a few early technical problems work together to produce a set where you hear every breath, every cello string bowed, every delicate bass note and ringing guitar chord. A mesmerising set ensues, Schvendes are a band that doesn't have to do or say a lot between songs, and in fact they're best staying silent to savour the adoring silence of the audience as they are absorbed in the show. Perhaps an occasional change of pace would be welcome; emotional lifts are needed at some points in the set as the dour melancholic material can sometimes be a little too much. However the set ends on a high note, so just as it's time to leave the audience and send them home, the band ensure that your memory of the night is generally a happy one.

My latest Indieoma.com post is an interview with Melbourne hipsters (or are they?) Dardanelles...

Geoff O'Conner is one of a multitude of Melbournian musicians with a penchant for side projects, his band 'Crayon Fields' already has several tours and releases under his belt, and now his solo persona 'Sly Hats' is rapidly catching up recently returning from a two month world tour with fellow songwriter 'Guy Blackman'. I caught up with a nervous Geoff and over cups of herbal tea we discussed Music, Melbourne (and sadly after the recorder was switched off and he finally relaxed) and the ways of the World.

As a cyclist you encounter so much stress, grief and abuse you at least hope that when you enter a bike shop you will be greeted by a friendly and supportive face. However even this isn't always the case as some cycle shop staff can be rude, patronising and unfriendly, especially to new and keen cyclists. So what a refreshing change it was when I set foot into Human Powered Cycles in Brunswick, not only friendly and approachable, but also passionate and with a big heart, lets have a few words with them.<br><br><b>Top Maintenance Tips</b><br>Keep your bike regularly maintained, oil the chain and wheels, keep all moving parts clean and basically just keep an eye on everything.<br>Make sure your light's batteries are not running out, especially on your back light as you may not always notice it's strength. On a related issue, don't buy two back lights to save money, this will confuse other traffic and could endanger you.<br>When adjusting gears don't rely on playing with the High and Low adjusters on the gear cluster, try adjusting the gear wire instead.<br><br>If you want to learn more about cycle maintenance then conveniently Human Powered offer some very competitively priced classes and rates for their own work, even providing courtesy bikes whilst yours is being fixed.<br><br><b>Top Riding Tips</b><br>Get a bike that fits you properly!<br>Don't hug the kerb and keep weaving in and out between packed cars, stay out in the road and stick to the same spot.<br>Don't ride timidly, assert yourself and be confident.<br>Obey the rules of the road, if you don't know them, learn them.<br><br>Human Powered's business has been sufficiently successful over the past seven years that they have been able to fund a program for recent Immigrants, providing bikes and cycling lessons, a quite unique scheme that you can help with by donating any old bikes you no longer require.<br><br>I asked the guys what they thought of some of the current issues that affect cyclists in Melbourne.<br><br><b>Why do you think that so many motorists in Melbourne are so 'bad' and have so little respect for Cyclists? </b><br>I feel that unlike many European cities motorists in Australia have priority, if they hit a non-motor vehicle then the victim is in the wrong. Perhaps this leads the attitude of motorists here, they feel they are always in the right. Generally most motorists get annoyed with pedestrians and cyclists because they slow them down. At the same time I dislike certain cyclists who abuse the rules of the road, annoying other users doesn't help, it will simply lead to more motorists disliking cyclists and treating us all with disdain and mistrust.<br><br><b>Do you think that if Cyclists paid a road tax we would be treated with more respect and get better facilities? </b><br>This is actually somewhat of a myth, the tax that motorists pay mainly goes into accident prevention / cure and then general administration costs of the tax. Cyclists have very little impact on council property and we pay for this with rates anyway. In fact, encouraging cyclists is in the interests of councils it leads to less wear and tear and increased health benefits.<br><br><b>What would help the future of cycling? </b><br>More education for all road users and more promotion of cycling as a viable and positive method of transport, both of these would hopefully lead to a change in attitudes.<br><br>Human Powered is a great self sufficient operation like so many in the inner suburbs, right down to their wonderfully informative website, their workshop computers running Linux and Bees in the backyard on the banks of the Merri. They are soon moving to commercial prosperity, hopefully it wont change the nature of the business.<br><br>38 Harrison St<br>Brunswick East<br>90296504<br><br>Soon moving to :<br>563 High Street<br>Thornbury<br><br>On the 1st December, drop by for opening specials!<br><br><a href=https://www.humanpowered.com.au target=î_blankî> www.humanpowered.com.au </a><br><br>The guys at Human Powered Cycles are so nice they've also offered anyone who mentioned Aduki a 10% discount.<

Rules of the road<br>Chris Chinchilla<br><br>A license is not required to ride a bike on Melbourne's (and most other cities in the world as far as I know) streets and sometimes knowing quite what you are allowed and not allowed to do or indeed what others should be doing around you is difficult to ascertain.<br>The fact is that when you are on a bike you should be obeying the rules of the road, but a lot of rules and regulations are squarely aimed at car drivers and if you haven't taken a license test, how are you supposed to know what they are anyway?<br><br>Here are a few rules and regulations that directly affect cyclists, so you can be aware of your rights and responsibilities.<br><br><b>Keep to the left</b><br>You should keep to the left of the lane, if the road is too narrow or clogged with traffic then you are perfectly within your rights to take the lane completely, a generally touted figure is to keep a metre from the curbside. Cyclists are also allowed to overtake on the left of a vehicle, but not if the vehicle is indicating or turning left. <br><br><b>Riding together</b><br>Often a subject of confusion, you are allowed to ride two abreast and a third cyclist is even allowed to overtake, so car drivers put away those horns.<br><br><b>Bike lanes and paths</b><br>Another common grey area, this one even surprised me. If there is a bike path or lane present, you are obliged to use it if practical. Cars are also obliged to give way to cyclists in lanes and paths.<br><br><b>Hook turns</b><br>Whilst not completely required for cyclists, at major intersections where trams are present it will assist your safety and visibility if you take a hook turn instead of a 'normal' one.<br><br><b>Traffic signs</b><br>Cyclists are required to obey traffic lights, stop signs and give way signs, failing to do so is an infringement and could result in a fine.<br><br><b>Opening Doors?</b><br>Speaking from experience, being hit by a car door is unpleasant, opening a car door into traffic is also illegal. The law states 'A person must not cause a hazard to any person or vehicle by opening the door of a vehicle?' a fact that will surprise many cyclists and car drivers alike. However, it does mean that if you are hit, you are well within your rights to take down details, claim any damages and if necessary, report the incident to the Police.<br><br><b>Compulsory accessories</b><br>A warning device such as a bell or horn.<br>An approved helmet.<br>At night a white front light and red back light.<br><br><b>Traffic Fines</b><br>Disobeying traffic lights : $220<br>No Helmet : $55<br>No Lights : $55<br>Riding on a footpath or other non-approved path : $55<br><br>In fact, cyclists are subject to the same fines as car drivers, so if you're very unlucky or not careful you could find yourself hit with a very unusual fine.<br><br><br>So bearing all of this in mind, why do so many cyclists seem to break these rules, putting themselves into danger, trouble and giving so many of us law abiding cyclists a bad name? I thought I'd do a little probing and try to understand why so many carry a chip on their shoulders about sharing the road and don't try to ride harmoniously with every other user of our public roads and footpaths.<br><br>A common reason for jumping red lights given by many cyclists is momentum. Unlike a car, it's is human endeavour and effort that propels your vehicle, stopping at red lights reverses all of the momentum you've just built up, starting up again can be a lot of effort. This is a fair point, but in my personal opinion, not completely valid and generally bought up by those who like to travel particularly fast or who have fixed wheel (i.e. one gear) bikes, utilising gears properly (as with a car) makes stopping and starting a fairly simple process. Yes, traffic lights are damned annoying, but they generally exist for a good reason and not obeying them could endanger you and others, ignoring the recurring issue that you will also potentially infuriate other road users, increasing cyclist animosity. Of course there are also those lights that simply don't trigger for cyclists, in those cases then you really have no option than to jump them or cross on the pedestrian crossing.<br><br>It does sadly seem that many cyclists suffer something of a superiority complex, taking the fact that they're 'doing their bit for the planet' as a carte blanche do what they like on the roads. Then there's the rebellious attitude that accompanies a lot of cyclists, the attitude that initially drives you to rebuke the four-wheeled majority and take to two wheels carries on into just doing what you damn like. Whatever your opinion or attitude, there are rules in place for a reason, if you don't agree with that reason or feel you are inappropriately represented or covered by regulations and rules then flaunting them isn't necessarily the best approach. One person breaking a rule because they feel justified or safer (which may have unforseen repercussions) in doing so achieves nothing, taking your complaints through official channels and making more intelligent larger scale protests through lobby groups (some listed below) or attending related public events can achieve better results.<br><br><br><br>www.bv.com.au<br>www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/Home/BicyclesPedestrians<br>www.austroads.com.au/abc<br><br>www.melbournecyclist.com/forum/topics/rule-breaking-cyclists<br>

I&#39;ll be delivering the new improved version 2 of my &#39;<a href="/presentation/extending-drupal-crm">Extending Drupal with a CRM</a>&#39; talk at <a href="https://www.meetup.com/drupalmelbourne/events/97620592/comments/143010552/" target="_blank">Drupal Melbourne&#39;s inaugural meetup for 2013 on the 8th Jan</a>. It will be new and improved with a tour through integrating external commercial CRMs with Drupal, Drupal native CRM tools and more pictures of cats.

Completing the tricefta of talking about <a href="https://civicrm.org" target="_blank">CiviCRM</a> at every user group for every platform it&#39;s available on in Melbourne, I&#39;m talking about CiviCRM and <a href="https://joomla.org" target="_blank">Joomla!</a> at this weekend&#39;s <a href="https://melbourne.joomladay.org.au/" target="_blank">Joomla!Day</a>.

I am honoured, happy and excited to have been asked to speak at a Web Directions event, <a href="https://code13melb.webdirections.org/" target="_blank">Web Directions Code</a>, here in Melbourne on the 2nd and 3rd of May.

<p class="p1">Drupal has a plethora of ways to power your mobile apps and websites, including:<ol class="ol1"><li class="li1">Responsive design</li><li class="li1">Offline storage</li><li class="li1">Integration with frameworks such as PhoneGap and Titanium Appcelerator</li><li class="li1">Utilising services to feed apps data</li><li class="li1">And much more</li></ol><p class="p1">This session will touch upon these various options, looking at when they are relevant, their complexity, their advantages and disadvantages, arming you with a toolbox for the next time a client asks for a mobile site or app.

Three presentations tonight, followed by usual natters at the lovely Last Jar afterwards.

<p align="left">The speaker line ups and topics keep getting better for the Melbourne geek nights and tonight is no expection.<p align="left"><strong>Ophelie Lechat from Flippa talking about &quot;Tackling the scary content marketing beast&quot;</strong><br />I&#39;ve been doing some of this myself recently, so it was interesting to hear some more in depth on te topic from a commercial perpective, here&rsquo;s what I got out of the session:<ul><li>Content isn&rsquo;t just a blog</li><li>Have editorial calendars</li><li>Content strategy and marketing are best friends as the discipline helps attract seo and web traffic, this in turn reduces demand on customer support and partnerships. good for engagement.</li><li>Assess what content you already have. If it&#39;s not content it may be existing skills or assets.</li><li>Writing for your site can be empowering for team members</li><li>Don&rsquo;t be afraid of ghost and hired writers.</li><li>Decide what will you talk about and don&#39;t just talk to and about yourself. Identify what others don&#39;t do or do badly.</li><li>ebooks of collections of posts are a great marketing idea.</li><li>What to write about - questions that need answering, searches on your site. What conversations are people having elsewhere? If you get stuck, write an outline first.</li><li>Keep your content as short as possible, focus, end with engagement, what do users/readers want?</li></ul>

<p class="p1">I am travelling on a three stage international flight today, it has a few hours stopover in each transit location, but that&#39;s little enough time that on upset can throw the whole flight out of whack.<p class="p1">I woke up this morning to see Google Now telling me that my first flight from Melbourne to Sydney had been delayed (I love big data and personally don&#39;t rely mind what services now about me, as long as I am aware) by two hours, which would mean I would miss my second and longest flight leg. I checked my emails, nothing from Virgin, no SMSs either. I checked the flight statuses on their website, which confirmed that my flight had been delayed (I&#39;m intrigued to know how you know a flight is going to be delayed in advance, but that&#39;s another discussion), so rang their customer service line to see what was going on.<p class="p1">After a bit of fathing about, which I always seem to get with Virgin customer service, it often takes three explanations to make them understand what you&#39;re talking about, I was informed that I had been moved to a flight an hour earlier. Still no emails or SMS regarding this, so what if I hadn&#39;t had rung?<p class="p1">I was still a little unsure about the change, but I figured there&#39;s certainly no harm in getting to the airport early, so left aiming for the earlier flight anyway.<p class="p1">Finally at a little over 2.5 hours before my new (unconfirmed) flight I finally received a phone call telling me to call Virgin about a flight change, so after ringing their customer services line and more fathing about, it was confirmed again that I had had my flight changed.<p class="p1">I am lucky to live close to the airport and I am also lucky that I have technology telling me my every move before I even know it myself, but what if I had been living a fair way out and wasn&#39;t so connected? Is three hours notice really enough time to get to the airport and checkin to an international flight on time? I guess this is a sign of when automated internal systems can fail.

<p class="p1">I feel slightly cheeky writing much about the event as I didn&rsquo;t really end up doing very much and felt somewhat humbled and embarrassed by the other attendees.<p class="p1">Anyway, to start at the beginning.<p class="p1">HealthHack 2013 was a weekend hackfest solving problems that medical researchers face. HealthHack brought together medical researchers, bioinformaticians, software developers, data analysts, data visualisers and designers. Together, they created new software tools to analyse, visualise and communicate data.<p class="p1">Organised by a great team in a very welcoming atmosphere it was a surprisingly well attended event considering the niche topic.&nbsp;Read about the weekend and the winners here - <span class="s2"><a href="https://healthhackmelb.com">healthhackmelb.com</a><p class="p1">I turned up on Friday night and enjoyed being very well fed and watered and finally got to meet <a href="https://twitter.com/FCTweedie"><span class="s2">@FCTweedie</a> in the flesh after much mutual twitter stalking.<p class="p1">I listened to the problem statements and must admit it was all a little over my head. I come from a technical background and despite having studied &lsquo;proper programming&rsquo; at University it has been a very long time since I really did any and I realise my web work is very light really. Also the technical scientific nature of the problems was a little out of my depth, I vaguely understand what things like DNA are, but when it comes to reporting, analysing and visualising them, way out of my comfort zone.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Still, I found one talk spoke to me at a level I could understand, which was about visualising the quality of academic papers on particular subjects. Working a lot within content management systems, this seemed like an ideal fit to my skills, so I joined the team. However, mixing with a bunch of far superior programmers to me, it was immediately obvious that they had far more complex (and probably more appropriate) solutions in mind and I was a little lost again&hellip;<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">I meandered around for a bit watching what people where up to and went to see if the organisers needed any help, they didn&rsquo;t, but were incredibly nice to me about everything and we had a very interesting chat about Hack events in general, but I think that&rsquo;s a discussion for another blog post.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Great stuff and congratulations to all involved.

Jonathan Teo (originally from Sydney) from General Catalyst Partners, a leading VC firm in Silicon Valley. Jonathan has personally led early-stage investments in 3 of the hottest companies of recent years including Twitter, Instagram and SnapChat, so a body of great knowledge.

A great session tonight with two case studies from local Drupal shops...

It seems as the year draws to an end, we&#39;re having some of the best talks! Damn Christmas&hellip;

With&hellip;&nbsp;Cory Doctorow, Melbourne Writers Festival Director Lisa Dempster and Peter Williams of the Deloitte Centre for the Edge. A main presentation, followed by a panel discussion, which I haven&#39;t really covered here and got interesting just as it was ending.

November has been a great month for meet-ups, perhaps everyone wrapping up for the year is making organisers up the ante.

This was a great session with a myriad of conflicting opinions and points of few, that always sparks a good debate :)</div>&nbsp;</div>First up a great set of introductory resources for startup founders from Scott Handsaker, with a lot of new initiatives arriving in Melbourne. His slides will be available on the <a href="https://www.meetup.com/Lean-Startup-Melbourne/events/160212272/" target="_blank">event&#39;s meetup page</a>.</div>&nbsp;</div>Secondly was a very constructive talk on outsourcing that actually gave some great constructive advice on best practise in this sometimes thorny field. Advice covered finding, briefing and using outsourced workers as well as more details on creating a brief, making sure they follow it and how to evaluate their work coping with time differences and other infrastructure and culture differences. Finally, in a nice positive twist, the speaker recommend being generous and encourage to your workers.&nbsp;</div>&nbsp;</div>Final came a panel with a mixed bag of local and international entrepreneurs, Susan Wu, Leni Mayo and Brendan Lewis. They discussed the Melbourne startup ecosystem and how it compares with others around the world, especially in the UK and US. Here&rsquo;s a few tidbits I garnered and remembered to write down.</div>&nbsp;</div><ul><li>People only look for success, not necessarily actions when weighing up the impact of startups and/or a city. Connections and support for these startups are equally as important.</li><li>Those individuals and organisations who are successful should give back.</li><li>London had been a recent case study of government encouraging growth through backing and legislation, but London scale is vastly larger than Melbourne.</li><li>Melbourne&#39;s lack of size and geography makes us look more outward, also our lack of plan B if you fail, there are no massive employers Like Google or Apple who will value you.</li><li>Australia is too full of safe investors, non risky investing.</li><li>Lean and tech startups aren&#39;t the only startups in Melbourne, there are many others participating in different scenes such as medical.&nbsp;</li></ul>

This was a strange event for a couple of reasons, firstly it didn't run very smoothly with lots of minor technical issues and delays that made the event run very long and late, with the main event not really starting until 8pm after a 6:30 start. Secondly the pitches (I saw, see later) were generally a little unsure and not in the traditional pitch style, I spent a lot of time thinking 'and...?', it was never very clear why the pitchers were pitching, what did they want to win for, what did they need the money for? A lot of the pitches had references to 'how awesome' eLance was, feeling more like a pitch for eLance than their own products some of the time.

<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">A strange session tonight as we had a last minute cancellation, this coupled with the typical business session audience, i.e. High RSVP, high no-show, meant it was a quiet and quick evening.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Andrew Skinner confessed to not being a confident public speaker, however this didn&#39;t detract from his high quality, high content presentation. The presentation covered getting client / internal team buy in for developing apps and Andrew drew from his years of experience working with some high profile clients and projects. His practical take homes was an explanation of Business canvases for developing business models and how to use them.<br /><em><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Connect with Andrew via LinkedIn - <span class="s2" style="line-height: 1.538em;"><a href="https://au.linkedin.com/in/andy2307" style="line-height: 1.538em;">https://au.linkedin.com/in/andy2307</a></em><p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Cameron Burns took a very different approach, being from a marketing background, throwing away his planned talk and just seeing what the audience were interested in. He covered sources of funding, choices of development stacks, using remote development teams, marketing plans for your apps and much much more in a quick fire sequence of tips and advice.<br /><em><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Connect with Cameron via LinkedIn - https://au.linkedin.com/pub/cameron-burns/21/71/629</em>

I&rsquo;ve been attending the <a href="https://www.meetup.com/Melbourne-KMLF/events/142133462/" target="_blank">Knowledge Management Melbourne</a> sessions without still being entirely clear what a Knowledge manager actually is, but I find the topics they present interesting and relevant, so&hellip;

We had two local and two international speakers this month&hellip;

I have dabbled with a little bit of work in the tech/health scene and always knew that Melbourne generally had a large and healthy medical ‘industry’, but I had no idea that the Startup space was so large! Tonight’s event was held at the brand new Royal Children’s Hospital, which was very shiny, new and welcoming. The crowd was a good mix of clinicians, technical folk and business folk and there were quite a few speakers, so I’ll get on with telling you about them all in my usual very brief manner.

<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">It&rsquo;s been a busy week and I haven&rsquo;t quite found the time for a daily blog, so instead, lets have a quick weekly round up&hellip;<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">On Monday I went to Mobile Mondays, <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/momomay-mobile-entrepreneur-and-startup-success-secrets-may-12-6pm-tickets-11398538335" target="_blank">a session on entrepreneurs and startups</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">. It was the usual slightly random feel that MoMoMelb often has. I found most of the speakers a little too forthright, telling you how good they all were rather than what they offered. Most interesting of the night was Brad Birchall of <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCwQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.seeracloud.com%2F&amp;ei=V_Z3U-_fJMLplAW-koCYBA&amp;usg=AFQjCNE2Y4i0sHPjfUFMf_8Z6358MTtGgw&amp;sig2=8L3j4nDBYSMJTkLYMUthcQ&amp;bvm=bv.66917471,d.dGI" target="_blank">Seera</a> (a competency framework for recruitment), but generally I couldn&rsquo;t quite figure what a lot of them actually did and why mobile was relevant.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Tuesday was Drupal Melbourne. Stuart Clarke gave a talk on <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/deciphered/building-on-a-commons-base-sustainable-distro-based-development" target="_blank">maintaining a Drupal distribution</a> which is worth a read if you do that sort of thing. Our main speaker of the night was a visitor from India, Anoop John, who I also met up with later in the week. His presentation on <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/zyxware/drupal-in-india" target="_blank">Drupal in India</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">&nbsp;was a fascinating insight into an emerging country in the Drupal ecosystem as well as the world generally. I was also given a present for my help with the meet ups over the past years, which was very nice. :)<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Wednesday was a <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/product-anonymous-may-14-mvp-tickets-10598537511" target="_blank">special session for the typically intimate Product Anonymous</a>, with a very large turnout, different venue and sponsorship. The subject was &lsquo;Minimum Viable Product&rsquo; (MVP) with speakers from Adioso, Seek, 99 Designs, Geoplex and hosted (admirably) by Jock Busuttil, Founder of Product People. It was a great session and I picked up some great advice that I will be applying to the Lean and Agile nonprofit project.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">At a slight tangent, on Saturday I went to the <a href="https://prov.vic.gov.au/" target="_blank">Public Records of Victoria</a> (PROV) open day and feel it&rsquo;s worth mentioning here. I found it fascinating that we still have so many paper records, in fact just 1% of Victoria&rsquo;s records have been digitised. So my fears of losing all of our records and output due to a lack of a compatible reading device in the distant future are far from being realised. Amongst many other things, I also learnt that PROV is a world leader in electronic record management and has advised the world through the <a href="https://prov.vic.gov.au/government/vers" target="_blank">VERS</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">&nbsp;standard. Finally I learnt about the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogical_Society_of_Utah" target="_blank">Genealogical Society of Utah</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">&nbsp;who are a branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and perform a massive amount of support&nbsp; for records offices all around the world through their FamilySearch brand.

In the past ten days I finally made the second overseas move of my life. This time from Melbourne to Leipzig.

So, we're coming up to our first month living in Leipzig (and Germany), so I think I can now start to give some initial impressions. Especially as now we are moving out of 'Holiday' mode and into 'Work' mode.

<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Phew, quite a week! I started throwing myself into a few meetups in Leipzig and learnt a great many things about the event culture here (and other things) that I would like to share with you&hellip;<p class="p1"><strong><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Toastmasters, Leipzig Chapter</strong><br /><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">I have never been to a <a href="https://www.toastmasters.org/" target="_blank">Toastmasters</a> event before, mainly because I&rsquo;ve never been invited, but also because I had always assumed it wouldn&rsquo;t quite suit me.&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.538em;"><a href="https://reports.toastmasters.org/findaclub/searchresults.cfm?Country=Germany&amp;State=&amp;City=Leipzig" target="_blank">Leipzig has two chapters</a>, one German and one English, unsurprisingly I went to the English one and they were pleased to have a native speaker to lend a hand.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Toastmasters in an International organisation that through its network of clubs helps develop people&rsquo;s presentation and public speaking skills. I&rsquo;ve always been slightly suspicious of these &lsquo;chapter&rsquo; type organisations, mainly because they&rsquo;re quite American in style and that always rubs an Englishman the wrong way. But also because I&rsquo;ve have often felt uncomfortable with bureaucracy and extraneous formality.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">However as the evening progressed I started to realise the benefits of some of these formalities and started to like them. I have plenty of public speaking experience and whilst I&rsquo;m not always great at it, I have the confidence to just do it without much thought. Not everyone does though and the enforced formalities about how proceedings should run, constructive feedback and a course structure (optional) help encourage and develop those who lack confidence to just plunge in the deep end.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">I don&rsquo;t know enough about how German associations are legally run, but it seems to me that Toastmasters chapters are run on very US/UK lines so it was also an interesting insight into the inner workings of an organisation.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"><strong>Leipzig PHP User Group</strong><br /><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">One of my general observations about events here is how late they start, I wonder if that in Melbourne meet up groups where what people did between work and others things and that here they are people&rsquo;s main event of the evening. So often an event wont start until 8/8:30 which is taking a slight adjustment for me.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">The group was a little different from a group meet up in Melbourne, smaller (of course) but more casual. There were no formal talks but more of a casual discussion around PHP news and then the topic of the month, Project Management. Keeping up with the discussion was a lot of work for me, but I quite enjoyed it and people made me feel welcome.<p class="p1"><a href="https://phpugl.de" target="_blank"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">phpugl.de</a><p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"><strong>BUND Harvest bike ride</strong><br /><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">The <a href="https://www.bund.net/" target="_blank">BUND</a> is the German branch of Friends of the Earth and in Leipzig runs a lot of land protection programs. I went on a fairly epic bike ride with them around some of their sites which also had lots and lots of fruit (mainly Apple and Plum) trees. Even better, we were invited to take as much fruit as we liked from them. Interestingly, several of these cites were owned by the city so were public access for people to pick fruit to. Again I had a couple of interesting broken German discussions learning about the first day of school, Allotments (Small gardens) and much more.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrischinchilla/sets/72157646641788879/" target="_blank">See photos of the ride here</a>.

Before spending seven years in Melbourne and then moving to Germany, I lived and grew up in London. I am one of London's rarities, a real, born-and-bred, bona fide Londoner. In fact I am actually a Cockney -- and one of the last!