A couple of years ago, the Dutch WebGUI society (known as WOSSA) started something called The WebGUI Drink. Every other month they'd get together in a local pub in Amsterdam for a couple hours and talk about WebGUI. Things like: What are the new features that are coming out? What are you working on? How did you overcome problem X? Wasn't JT mean to that guy on the dev mailing list today. You know, the usual.

Late last year the German WebGUI users and Plain Black each started their own WebGUI Drinks. The German group meets on the second Tuesday of every month in either Mannheim or Heidelberg. And the Plain Black crew meets on the third Tuesday of every month in Madison, Wisconsin. So now there are three groups who meet regularly, and Patrick Donelan of SDH Consulting in Australia is looking into setting up a fourth.

I thought telling you, my readers, might be interesting because I'll bet there are a lot of WebGUI users out there that don't know about these Drinks. If there's one even remotely in your area, I recommend attending, even if only once. You'll build connections and gain insights into WebGUI and the community that you can never do in an online world.

In addition, if you have the initiative, start your own WebGUI Drink. Publish the dates to the WebGUI community calendar like the rest have. You may not get a lot of attendance, but even making one connection with someone could be very useful. If you run a business that uses WebGUI you might even find some potential new employees there, we have. And if there's something you need to make your little group work, contact Plain Black. We'll be happy to help out with whatever resources you need.