I’m happy to (finally) announce the first meeting of the Charleston, SC Java Users Group. It will be held April 2, 2008 at 5pm. We will probably actually start the meeting around 5:15 so please try to be at least close to on time. The meeting will be at the Benefitfocus building. The address is 100 Benefitfocus Way, Charleston SC 29492. However, Google maps doesn’t have us on it yet.

Here is a modified version of Google maps with directions to us. This link will allow you to enter the address you are coming from. Please note: If you head north on River Landing Drive and miss the turn for Fairchild Street you will find yourself on the interstate and will have to go all the way to the edge of Mt. Pleasant to turn around.

If you are planning on attending please RSVP by visiting our bulletin board and going into the RSVP forum. There will be a post for each meeting so that we can get a head count and list out any volunteers to bring refreshments. Also, Aaron Houston from Sun sent us a bunch of SWAG. I’ll be giving this all out at the first meeting and the first two people to volunteer to bring refreshments will get a book. First person to sign up gets their choice of book. I won’t reveal what the books are until people sign up though.

Should you have questions, comments, concerns feel free to call me at 843-849-7476. You will get the receptionist - just as for Jason McDonald.

I swear. I am just now getting caught back up from being sick and have communications out to various people to start getting things moving for our first meeting. I am waiting to hear back from our HR department on what I need to do to schedule the meeting after hours with non-employees - I have to follow the security procedures and all. Also, I am waiting to hear back from our media department on whether they would be interested in filming our meetings so that we can podcast them.

If you have experience/knowledge/equipment to podcast in decent quality let me know. I know our media department has a million things on their plate so they may not be able to accommodate this.

Finally, I am beginning to work on a basic presentation to walk through in our first meeting - this won’t be anything spectacular, just an overview of what the plans are for the group that will lead into a discussion about where we want to go with this and what we want to do.

As always, if you are interested in helping, contact me. We also need some traffic on the forums - this will likely pick up later but there are people watching it - just nobody posting. Post away!

So I struggled with a bout of pneumonia last week and am still trying to get caught back up on all my little projects. I am still planning the first meeting but wanted to drop a line out indicating that it is still in the works. I am thinking sometime within the next two to three weeks but am waiting to hear back about who I need to schedule building time through and all the red tape I have to work through to allow visitors in the building after hours.

If you have any interest in helping out, email me.