Hacker Culture and geek groups in Birmingham, West Midlands
Birmingham has a vibrant community of geek/enthusiast groups, of which I’m proud to be a part. That said, it’s sometimes hard to find or even know about all of them, without the right. So collected here are the groups I know of:
- Birmingham LUG
- Linux User Group that meets at the University of Birmingham, on the third Thursday of each month. Meetings are usually a technical talk, followed by a drink at the bar on campus.
- Birmingham Perl Mongers
- Perl user group that meets in Birmingham, twice each month alternating between technical and socials. Group members hosted the 2006 YAPC::Europe Perl Conference, and are major contributors to the Perl community.
- Brum2600
- Hacker group that meet in Birmingham, on the first Saturday of each month. Brum2600 also holds Brumcon, an annual event with speakers from around the country and Europe.
- Coventry LUG
- Linux User Group that meet in Coventry, twice each month for a socal on the first Tuesday and a technical meeting on the third Tuesday.
- fizzPOP
- A hackerspace that holds hack sessions in the centre of Birmingham, every few weeks. Hack Sessions involve electronics projects (esp. Arduino), art projects, crafts, mechanics and other varied creative activities.
- Mappa Mercia
- OpenStreetMap mapping group for the West Midlands. They hold mapping parties and meet regularly for socials. Members have been instrumental in mapping the West Midlands so well.
- Midlands Micromouse and Robotics Club
- A group that builds and competes robots to map and navigate a maze in the shortest time. Competitions are held monthly. Other robots are also featured.
- Multipack
- A community of web developers and designers who hold regular meetings and varied meetings in pubs and parks around Birmingham.
- Paradise Circus
- Group of bloggers, web developers, and social media types that meets monthly to hold a Bloggers Meet and a Social Media Surgery. The group is named after the Building that houses Birmingham Central Library.
- PHP WM
- PHP West Midlands group meets in the centre of Birmingham, on the second Tuesday of each month. There is usually a talk followed by discussion.
- PyWM
- Python user group that holds a technical meeting near to Sutton Coldfield, on the fourth Saturday of each month. There was once also a social meeting held on a Thursday, but this is not currently happening. PyWM members have organised PyCon UK and EuroPython for the past few years running.
- Redditch and Bromsgrove LUG
- Linux User Group that meets in Bromsgrove and Redditch, every other month on the first Thursday.
- Warwick University GNU/LUG
- Linux User Group that meets at the University of Warwick, each Wednesday during term time.
- West Midlands Ruby User Group
- Group covering the Ruby programming language and Ruby on Rails framework. They are newly started, so far meeting once in Wolverhampton and once in Birmingham.
- Wolves LUG
- Linux User Group that meets in Wolverhampton every second Wednesday, for socialising and the occasional talk. Wolves LUG is notable for it’s high preponderance of Ubuntu users. Members have been instrumental in organising LugRadio Live events.
EDITS: 2010-02-11 21:00 Added Multipack. 2010-02-17 Added Birmingham Micromouse.