Hey all,<div><br></div><div>Winter: December, January, February. What a desolate time. </div><div><br></div><div>Well you need fear no longer, there are plans for a ray of LRUG light in each of these blighted months. Huddle round this email, quiet your jabbering and I shall tell you of these plans.</div>
<div><br></div><div>December!</div><div><br></div><div>We will meet on Monday 10th December and be thrice blessed by talks:</div><div><br></div><div>1. Frederick Cheung will tell us about "Going Native", by which he means: FFI and C extensions.</div>
<div>2. Joel Chippindale will regale us with his gripping tale: "<span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">My tests run faster than your tests".</span></div>
<div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">3. Claudio Ortolina is going to show us Hermes: a vim/tmux environment for Ruby and Javascript.</span></div>
<div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Frederick's talk will be a long one, Claudio and Joel will present shorter talks.</span></div>
<div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">You can register here: </span><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><a href="http://skillsmatter.com/event-details/home/london-ruby-december" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">http://skillsmatter.com/event-details/home/london-ruby-december</a>, read more here: <a href="http://lrug.org/meetings/2012/11/28/december-2012-meeting/">http://lrug.org/meetings/2012/11/28/december-2012-meeting/</a>, and tell people about it here: <a href="http://lanyrd.com/2012/lrug-december" target="_blank">http://lanyrd.com/2012/lrug-december</a></span></div>
<div><br></div><div>January!</div><div><br></div><div>We're scheduled to meet on Monday, January 14th and as this meeting will be 6th anniversary of me talking over organisation duties on LRUG I though what better way to celebrate than to replicate the first one I ran (way back in January 2007). Thus to ease us into 2013 I'm hoping to run a "Pub Quiz" evening.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I say "Pub Quiz" because it won't be in a pub, it'll be in the Skills Matter office (I'm too lazy to find a pub that might accommodate 100+ ruby developers on a Monday eve). It'll be a little bit pubby because I've got prices from Skills Matter for getting some beers in. It will definitely be quite quizzy though because I'll write a quiz - probably with similar rounds to the last one: <a href="http://lrug.org/meetings/2006/12/07/january-2007-pub-quiz-meeting/" target="_blank">http://lrug.org/meetings/2006/12/07/january-2007-pub-quiz-meeting/</a>.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I need your help though. We need sponsors to pay for the drinks. If you or your company would be interested in paying for some drinks please get in touch with me directly and I'll let you know the prices and such. I'm also hoping to scare up some prizes from Ruby-ish companies (Railscasts, O'Reilly, Peepcode, etc...) - if you have any contacts that might help, do let me know. If you might be interested in providing a prize please do get in touch about that too.</div>
<div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">There are no details yet. I'll write it up when it's more concrete. If I don't get enough sponsors I'll run a normal meeting (and weep uncontrolably during the Q&A).</span></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse:collapse"><br></span></font></div><div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">February!</span></div>
<div><font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="border-collapse:collapse"><br></span></font></div><div><font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="border-collapse:collapse">Lightning Talks, innit?</span></font></div>
<div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></span></div><div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif">As usual we'll do our 20x20 routine in Feb, so I'll be looking for between 8 and 10 speakers to give lightning talks. You must know the drill by now; 20 slides that auto transition after 20seconds, giving you 6 minutes and 40 seconds in which to make your point. It's always a fun night and it's a good format for getting your feet wet as a speaker. Although you do have to prepare in advance (and you really must rehearse), I think that the constraints really help with how you write and structure the talk.</span></div>
<div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></span></div><div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif">Get your thinking caps on and expect more info after the Jan meeting. The meeting should be on Monday, 11th February.</span></div>
<div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></span></div><div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif">March!</span></div>
<div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></span></div><div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif">Wait, that's Spring. Ignore this section.</span></div>
<div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></span></div><div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif">Cheers,</span></div>
<div><font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="border-collapse:collapse"><br></span></font></div><div><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif">Murray</span></div>