use Perl

There's a discussion among the Perl Monger group leaders at the moment, regarding announcing events for all the groups. The suggestion has been to store all events on a central iCal server, so that each pm group homepage can accessing a feed. The feed will need to be set so that only events for groups in your area are initially seen, with perhaps a link to a list for all groups. Birmingham.pm already has an events page, but knowing what's happening at other UK groups would be a really nice feature.

I really like the idea, and being a fairly active group ourselves when it comes to technical meetings, it would be nice to be able to advertise the meetings a bit more globally. I have been tempted to send Dave a rundown of the talks at each particular meeting in the past, for inclusion on the pm.org homepage. However, seeing as no other pm group has done that, I've been reluctant to do it myself.

I think the iCal idea is an excellent one, as it'll hopefully make people more aware of active groups in their area, make them more aware of dates to keep free in their diary and perhaps more importantly, will give potential speakers an idea of who puts on technical meetings, thus encouraging them to get in touch if they are in the area.

I certainly plan to get in touch with other groups if ever I'm on holiday or business that takes me near them. Having an iCal list might encourage others to do the same. If only to meet up for a beer or two :)