I would like to thank everyone for their responses!  I am working on a few things to hopefully get us going in the right direction:

1) a brief online web survey for everyone to fill out that will help us gauge the background of those interested in participation and help steer content for the first call.  For example, what stage your local Galaxy deployment is in ( running for several years with 20+ users, no running local Galaxy but interested in hosting one, currently installing and configuring, etc).  How many people are you targeting using Galaxy?  What problem areas have you hit? What customizations have you done? What areas are you interested in learning more about in these calls? etc.)   The results of the survey will be published out to the group.

2) I am working on getting a teleconference with international numbers arranged.  I like the idea of having regional groups and maybe summaries/any presentation slides can be posted to do cross regional sharing.  At the same time - anyone interested (from any geographic region) is welcome to join - time zones may not be convenient, however, but we will do our best.

3) I will send out a poll to see if we can find the *best* time for our first call.  Yes, this will be difficult - but we will pick a time that works for the majority.

Stay tuned and looking forward to our first call.  Dave, as always, thanks for your help - I will be contacting you shortly.

Ann

On 4/30/2012 9:39 AM, Ryan Golhar wrote:
Agreed.  User driven is good.  Having developer(s) available to answer questions would be helpful...that's what I was alluding to...

On Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 10:37 PM, Dave Clements <clements@galaxyproject.org> wrote:
Hi Ryan, Ann, and everyone else

I second what Nate says (I always do :-).  I too like that it is user driven.  And, while I am not a developer, I do plan on being on the call as often as possible.

I can also offer my support for logistical and any other support.  Ann, please let me know if you want help with getting this going and getting the word out.


On a related note, ....  With Matloob's email, we have at least 3 organizations in Australia and New Zealand that are interested. I know that there are many more Galaxy installations in that part of the world (and you have Enis and Ross in Australia now).  Would this be a good opportunity to set up the first (to my knowledge) regional user group?  If anyone thinks this is a good idea, please respond (and create a new thread).


Finally, Ann, thanks for starting this.

Dave C



I also  that both Ross and Enis are in Australia now



On Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 10:24 AM, Nate Coraor <nate@bx.psu.edu> wrote:
Hi Ryan,

I like that it's user-directed, and we could be there to provide input, although if help is needed to organize the call we could probably assist with that.  I plan to be on the call as often as my schedule allows, and I believe some of the other developers on the team would also be interested.

--nate

On Apr 28, 2012, at 8:49 AM, Ryan Golhar wrote:

> One question - Are the Galaxy developers involved in this or is this for user's only?  It may be helpful to have developers on the call to provide information that users do not necessarily have.
>
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