Millwood Online

This time last year Dries announced the elections for the Drupal Association. I was so close to applying, but didn't feel I was in the right position at the time. This year it is a different story, I am therefore preparing early and working on my application for the Drupal Association General Assembly even before the elections have been announced.

Within the last year I have changed job (from the International Baccalaureate (http://www.ibo.org) to Mark Boulton Design (http://www.markboultondesign.com)), attended two Drupalcons, put in a proposal to host Drupalcon in London (http://groups.drupal.org/node/28098), attended and spoke at DrupalCamp UK and launched even more Drupal sites. I feel this makes me a more well rounded community member. I have grown as a Developer very quickly over the last two years, it's hard to believe that I had never heard of Drupal until December 2007. I think this gives me the experience to help new developers and designers wanting to join in with Drupal community activities.

The Drupal community is the best development community ever, and I love being part of it. I would really like to do more to help the community grow. I truly believe that it is not just the software that makes Drupal great, it is the community. If elected as a Drupal Association General Assembly member I would like to help new members join and feel part of the Drupal community.

We all know Drupal has a steep learning curve for new users, but has anyone every thought about the learning curve of the community? Do people want to help but they get scared? Do people want to help but they don't know how?

The Drupal Association Statutes document states that "The purposes of the Association shall be for providing support in developing, communicating, promoting, distributing the Drupal project and in deploying an infrastructure in support of the Drupal project.". Therefore as a Drupal Association General Assembly I would plan take on a new role to communicate and promote the Drupal project to new developers and designers to help them help Drupal. Once of the best ways for new developers and designers to feel part of the Drupal community is through Drupalcon. As a member of the DA and the Drupalcon London proposal I would like to help make Drupal events, and the process of organising them better.

It is often easy to forget that the Drupal community is not just about developing Drupal. As the Drupal project grows tasks such as communication, organization, planning, and marketing will become more and more important. I am willing to help out anywhere I am needed with these tasks, although my main drive is to bring Drupal to a new audience and generation. The Drupal association are also responsible for tasks such as the maintaining and redesigning the Drupal.org website and infrastructure. I am really keen to roll up my sleeves and help out with these.