It’s my pleasure to announce the formation of Memphis PHP, a PHP user group serving Memphis, TN and the mid-south.  The goal of Memphis PHP is to grow and nurture an active PHP community in the local area.  It’s going to take a lot of work to get Memphis PHP off the ground, but having an active community of PHP developers in Memphis is long overdue.  The hard work will be more than worth it, and I’m going to need your help to accomplish that goal.

My first exposure to the PHP community at large came when I attended ZendCon in 2008.  After getting a taste of what the PHP community had to offer, I was pretty bummed out that we didn’t have anything going in Memphis.  Attending ZendCon in ‘08 led to attending ZendCon in '09, Nashville’s excellent Big LAMP Camp event last November, and I just returned from the tek-X conference in Chicago.

One of my favorite sessions at this year’s tek-X was the Community Roundtable, “an all-star lineup of community members” discussing user groups: what they are, how to start them, and how to keep them going.  It was the Community Roundtable that finally convinced me enough was enough, that it was time to start a user group right here in Memphis, TN.

The Details

• Memphis PHP will meet on the 4th Thursday of every month at 6:30pm (currently searching for a suitable location).
• Memphis PHP uses Meetup.com for membership, event and meeting announcements, RSVPs, etc.
• Our first event will be a road trip to Nashville on June 8th to visit the Nashville PHP user group.
• Our first official meeting will be on June 24th, location and speaker/agenda TBA.
• Follow @MemphisPHP on Twitter for community updates and the like.
  • If you’re on Twitter and would like to be added to the memphisPHP-devs list, let me know.
  • Our official hashtag is #memphisPHP.
• Our general discussion group and mailing list is hosted at Google Groups
• Employers and recruiters are more than welcome to post opportunities to our discussion list. Please read the guidelines for Posting Employment Opportunities first.

Welcome to Memphis PHP!  I hope you’ll join me in making Memphis PHP a huge success.

Big Thanks

Special thanks go out to the Community Roundtable panel (@DragonBe, @LornaJane, @rdohms, @ramsey, @CaseySoftware) at tek-X for direction and tips, Ben Ramsey of Nashville PHP for his guidance and support, and Chance Garcia for beating me to the punch.

I’d also like to thank Wes Hicks and the team at G2 Technology for offering to help spread the word about Memphis PHP and help find a meeting place.