Last week was the inauguration of the Paris Java User Group. For this first event David and I did a quick presentation on JUGs in general, JUGs around the world, and what we are planning to do with the Paris JUG. We talked for about half an hour, then had a buffet (offered by our sponsor Aneo) and networking session that finished up around 11pm. Even if we were busy moving tables, opening bottles and cleaning up (is that the job of a JUG leader? ;o) we managed to talk to a   lot of people. After 11pm, with a little group of hard-core juggers, we ended up at a local bar until ... a   bit late. \   \   80 people had registered to attend the event on the JUGEvents web site. I roughly counted about 65 who came. The room we had booked at Port Parallèle is sized for 35-40 people, so we were a bit crowded with most of us standing up (as you can see in these photos). \

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After the presentation there was a Q&A and then more talking around the buffet and feedback via email over the following days. We've appeared in many blogs and the magazine Programmez wrote a resume of the ParisJUG. A lot of people are happy that, at last, France's first Java User Group has been established. Hopefully more French JUGs will follow. I've heard that Tours and Bordeaux may one day host a JUG. 

I think everyone had a really good time at the JUG inauguration. It's always good to meet Java aficionados who want to share their passion. We've got speakers lined up for events in the coming months, and we've already got two sponsors and been contacted by many potential ones. Thanks to our partners too. \   \   But an inauguration is fun when things go wrong, and they did. Believe it or not, just six hours after the end of the meeting, in the middle of the night, our server crashed. We quickly had to find a backup solution and host our site somewhere else. I could lie and tell you that the server was under too much load due to the success of the Paris JUG, but it was a hardware crash. Maybe a good omen for the future of the Paris JUG. \   \   See you on Tuesday the 11th of March for the next meeting. \

People have already been talking about the Paris JUG \

http://www.programmez.com/(...) \   http://blog.xebia.fr/(...) \   http://blog.octo.com/(...) \   http://blog.valtech.fr/(...) \   http://blogs.sun.com/alexismp/(...) \   http://www.touilleur-express.fr/(...)