How do you enter to win? Easy. Just join our Google Group anytime between now and midnight on April 30, and you’ll receive one entry into the drawing. If you’re already a member, just post your favorite WordPress tip to the group, and you’re entered. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON. Winner will be chosen by a random drawing. Entry deadline is Friday, April 30 at midnight Pacific time, and we’ll announce the winner on Saturday, May 1.

Open Source Bridge is a conference for developers working with open source technologies and for people interested in learning the open source way. Find out more at http://opensourcebridge.org.

PS: Members can also register for Open Source Bridge at a special discounted rate. I’ll post the discount code on the Google Group.

We announced our poll to decide on a date for the July meeting, since we didn’t want to meet the same night as Ignite Portland. Several people did take time to vote, and the meeting was later set for Thursday, July 23, 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Webtrends.

Aaron Hockley gave us an update on WordCamp Portland (September 19-20 at Webtrends). What WordCamp Portland needs most right now are sponsors! ¾ of event costs last year were covered by sponsors, which keeps event costs low.  Financial or in-kind sponsorships are welcome.  Contact @ahockley or @dalechumbley if you would like to be a sponsor or have leads for sponsors. For WordCamp Portland updates, subscribe to the WordCamp Portland blog or follow @wordcampdx on Twitter.

We then discussed the recent WordPress 2.8 release (see WordPress 2.8 Overview for an outline).

As noted above, next meeting 7/23 at 6:00 p.m. at Webtrends, 851 SW 6th Avenue, Suite 1600. Hope to see you there!

Now, here’s what you need to know about meeting logistics.

LOCATION:  The Open Source Bridge conference is being held at the Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE MLK Jr. Blvd.  You do NOT need to be registered for the conference to attend the user group meeting. We are scheduled as a “Birds of a Feather” session, and will be in the Steel room.

TIME: Please note that we are meeting at a different time this month – 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

WHY ARE WE MEETING HERE? Because WordPress is one of the finest examples of open source software out there!

If you DO want to register for Open Source Bridge, you can get a special rate of $150 for all three days as a member of the Portland WordPress User group. Just use the discount code osb4228 when you register.

What is Open Source Bridge?

Open Source Bridge is a new conference for developers working with open source technologies. It will take place June 17-19 in Portland, OR, with five tracks connecting people across projects, languages, and backgrounds to explore how we do our work, and why we participate in open source. The conference structure is designed to provide developers with an opportunity to learn from people they might not connect with at other events.

Through this conference, we hope to answer a question: what are the rights and responsibilities of an open source citizen? As developers, we find ourselves in many roles; we are users, creators, and leaders. The Open Source Bridge team believes that our role as open source citizens informs our work whether we are conscious of it or not. Open Source Bridge is intended as a call to action to become better citizens, by sharing our knowledge with each other.

• Betsy Richter led the meeting, focusing on the wide variety of plugins available for use in WordPress (Betsy will post a fuller recap of this part of the meeting as soon as she’s able).
• Aaron Hockley talked about WordCamp Portland (coming September 19-20).
• Kathleen McDade (that’s me!) was introduced as an addition to the Portland WordPress User Group leadership (so you’ll be seeing more of me here, on Twitter, and maybe elsewhere).
• We gave away two free passes to the Open Source Bridge conference.

The next meeting will be held at Open Source Bridge — details to come in another post!

We’ll also get an update about September’s WordCamp conference from Aaron Hockley, and get a preview of the conference space itself. We’ll leave time for questions – I know one member will want to talk about a way to use WordPress to handle calendars, event registration and PayPal integration.

And if that’s not enough of an incentive? We also have a free Open Source Bridge conference pass to give away to one lucky attendee, plus discount registration codes for everyone else. (Of course, you’ll have to be there tomorrow night in order to win and/or get the registration codes.)

Meeting details as follows…

When: Thursday, May 14th. 6:00-7:30 pm
Where: WebTrends (map)
851 SW 6th Ave # 600
Portland, OR 97204
Meeting details: Calagator
RSVP on Upcoming

Please join us!

Early heads-up: next month’s meeting (scheduled for Thursday, 6/18) will be at Open Source Bridge – we’re going to take over the Hacker Lounge at 6 pm!