Do you know if there is any existing Java User Group for West Yorkshire? It might still be worth forming one if there isn't one already existing. If one does already exist I could contact the JUG leader about holding some events at Bradford. It would also make sense as you say to perhaps have some larger Yorkshire wide events even if more than one Java User Group existed in Yorkshire. Taking into consideration that in West Yorkshire there are Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield as cities with Leeds in particular a big business centre. Leeds and Bradford are essentially neighbouring cities so in spite of Leeds being the larger and more prominent city it is still pretty easy for anyone in Leeds to get to Bradford. In addition to the Cities there are many large and small towns around those cities with Huddersfield being basically a city by population though I don't know if it has official city status. There are clusters of businesses in Halifax / Elland / Brighouse. I am in Dewsbury (where there is little going on and these days and it seems to be more of a commuter town to the neighbouring cities, Heckmondwike, Cleckeaton and Liversage are much the same). Batley has a high tech park. Team 17 who made the Worms games is based in Osset but I don't know that they do anything with Java technology.
There are definitely development companies in the area and among those Java development companies (as I have worked for one). As regards Java User Groups, it had been pointed out before particularly on the Illegal Argument podcast that many developers are "nine to fivers" who just go in each day and do their job and when they go home don't want to do anything else with it. The kind of people who join JUGs are not your typical developers but are the more proactive end. The question is really how many of those kinds of people exist in the area and how many would want to join a JUG. The more I listen to different podcasts and hear news from the community the more I seem to hear many of the same names and the same individuals. This makes me wonder how common it is to find such individuals. Yorkshire isn't exactly known for being very progressive when it comes to technology or maybe that is just my unfair perception of it. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
