I’ve been holding this off for a few weeks now, but it’s always been at the back of my mind. I’m a developer at heart, have been for over 10 years and I subscribe to the majority of the developer norms (thankfully not all).

It’s no secret that I’ve been involved in organising a DrupalCamp for Manchester. It’s hard work and it’s stressful.

It’s not something that would come easy to a developer, it’s a task that most developers wouldn’t even attempt. However I feel I’m up to the challenge and the timing is right.

This post is mostly about what I’ve learnt, the camp is still a work in progress but I’ve learnt so much stuff:

  1. Don’t do this! It’s hard work, it’s very very stressful (I’ve made many angry phone calls today).
  2. If you do decide to go with it get a good team, seriously a good team is great, I’m lucky and have a great one who I can trust to get stuff done. We all have our own unique talents which makes spreading the work load a lot easier.
  3. Get a venue, get it early and get the paperwork. All my stress over the past few weeks has been down to this one fact alone.
  4. Get sponsors, they’re key to providing some early needed funds.
  5. Use people’s contacts! It makes it much easier to get stuff done, especially with suppliers.

So this is where we get to the “Now you can panic” part, we’ve still got a lot of work to do but it’s finally coming together.

For more info on Drupalcamp North West please follow @DrupalCampNW on Twitter.