Calling all Revit Users in the UK, User Group web site now launched

[Damo]

The UK Revit User Group is delighted to announce the official re-launch of the group with a new web site dedicated to Revit users working in the UK.

http://www.revitusergroup.org.uk/

As part of this exciting new beginning, there is a free competition to design the user group’s logo, with a fantastic prize for the chosen design, see the web site for details.

Phil Palmer, James Lupton, Peter Jackson and Damian Bree are delighted to invite you to visit our site, register your contact details as a member and participate in developing the UK-RUG for your needs. We are looking to host a national Revit conference in February 2006 and welcome your comments and suggestions.

And indeed, if any of our overseas colleagues should wish to join and contribute to the group or attend at the conference, please let us know.

And for all our AUGI colleagues, we would like to assure you that the UK Revit User Group web site is not an alternative to AUGI but is there to co-ordinate the administration of the UK user group with its members.

Finally, I would like to thank our webmaster Trevor who managed to get our web site up and live one day ahead of schedule!

[James.Lupton]

Nice work Trevor and thanks to everyone else who has helped to get things going.

As other AUGI users have more experience on organizing and attending/participating in the local user groups (LUG's) it would be interesting to know what activities you recommend and what works well in boosting attendance and support.

What type of format do the LUG meetings normally take.
Who hosts the meetings
Who normally attends

What benefits are obtained from attending

Any other information and advice would be really appreciated.

[Roger Evans]

http://www.revitusergroup.org.uk/

As part of this exciting new beginning, there is a free competition to design the user group’s logo, with a fantastic prize for the chosen design, see the web site for details.

We are looking to host a national Revit conference in February 2006 and welcome your comments and suggestions

Any update on this?
The site was down when I tried today

[James.Lupton]

Roger

The ISP seems to be a bit unreliable at present

The site is active but seems to be prone to downtime

Please keep trying back.

[Damo]

Any update on this?
The site was down when I tried todaySorry Roger, I noticed this too on Saturday. I'll get our IT guy to check it out on Monday.

[Lashers]

Hey guys!
While we are here . . any word on the date and venue for the conference??

Oh! Damo, you might want to check you computer time, looks an hour ahead . . .

[tpool]

Apologies to anyone has come across errors on the user group website.

It was pretty much offline all weekend. There is a problem with the service provider (PIPEX). They acknowledge that there is a problem, and tell me they are working with Microsoft to sort it out.

Unfortunately the error is: 'General Network Error', which is pretty unhelpful for anybody!

For the time being, the site is live, but the errors may occasionally return.

Apologies once again for any inconvenience.

Trevor Pool
Webmaster
http://www.revitusergroup.org.uk

[blads]

Congrats on your new website...it looks good...

[James.Lupton]

KingBlads

Could you share some of your experiences of how you organize the SA RUG

How often do you run your meetings

What other activities do you organize

Have you run a Revit User Conference

Of the things you have tried what has worked well and what has been less successful.

How do you fund yourselves for the simple costs such as hiring a room or renting web-space.

Do you involve your resellers?

Any other advice?

If anyone else has ideas or success stories from their RUG please share them with us.

We are also looking for some international representation at the user conference which is expected to be in early March. If anyone feels they could help out please let Damian, Phil, Peter or me know.

[blads]

KingBlads

Could you share some of your experiences of how you organize the SA RUG

How often do you run your meetings

What other activities do you organize

Have you run a Revit User Conference

Of the things you have tried what has worked well and what has been less successful.

How do you fund yourselves for the simple costs such as hiring a room or renting web-space.

Do you involve your resellers?

Any other advice?

If anyone else has ideas or success stories from their RUG please share them with us.

We are also looking for some international representation at the user conference which is expected to be in early March. If anyone feels they could help out please let Damian, Phil, Peter or me know.The group was organized with huge help from our local reseller, Karel*CAD. Originally I'd tried to form a special interest group as an adjunct to the AutoCAD Users group to which I 'm still a member, and whilst some members are running a Revit/a'cad product no-one wanted anything to do with that group...

Currently we very small only about 15+ members... From our initial meeting, we decided on the the structure of the group (office bearers), mapped out and "basic" agenda for meetings, membership fees, etc. We plan to have initially a meeting every 2-3 months or as events/people decide otherwise... (to date we have had only 2 meetings...)

At pour last meeting / Xmas function, we planned that our next meeting go "on the road" to one of our country members establishments... & it also happens to be in a wine district, so mixing pleasure with Revit - that 's still being "mapped out".

Meeting Format
1. Host Introduction & meeting overview
2. Correspondence from previous meeting
3. Host case study
4. Product demonstration & technical feedback
5. Q & A inclusive of: group discussion, problem/issue identification and product / performance tips
6. Summary including capture of issues to be actioned going forward

We haven't run any conferences yet... but my involvement with other organizations most definitely have ( & currently in the process now for a National Building Designers conference... (http://www.sapro.com.au/BDA/home.htm))

Last meeting didn't go entirely to plan but you improvise along the way...

Thankfully thro' a reseller, we use their facilities for meetings (at no charge), our memberships fees ($25/person) covers catering, for the interim I maintain a blog (http://sarug.blogspot.com/), so no web-space rental or domain names fees have been accrued.

HTH good luck with your group...

PS I know Phil Berstein, Autodesk VP is busy as is most other A'desk employees that time in March, as we tried to get him as a keynote speaker. Its actually worked for the better because now we have got Elrond Burrell & Richard Binning...

[rhys]

Damian, Phil et al,
Are you aware that Cadline a UK reseller are launching a "Revit Society" on 7th February?
http://www.cadline.co.uk/default.aspx?cid=1013

[Roger Evans]

What?? Only 15? Shame on you
& on top of that it looks like you have depleted the UK numbers by kidnapping Elrond

I propose the UK South Wales arm of the national Revit User Group holds the first Venue in a travelling circus & hires out the tent for the Hall of Mirrors. Hands up those who agree

Yup that's um .. No cheating now .. put the other hand down .. um .. well at least the vote goes to the .... Green tomatoes

[ejburrell67787]

What?? Only 15? Shame on you
& on top of that it looks like you have depleted the UK numbers by kidnapping Elrondonly for a brief time! 8-)

[James.Lupton]

Kingblads

Thanks for the feedback and for giving us an insight into how your local
Revit Community works.

I am sure the ACAD guys will soon be flocking across to Revit and joining up once they realize the power of the software.

I am sure everyone in your group will benefit from the local community providing each other with advice and assistance. I personally believe that with Revit, more than any other software, we will all benefit from the strong local community

There is nowhere that demonstrates this more than right here at AUGI. Have you noticed that there are hardly any threads left without an answer or a workaround?

Keep up the good work of spreading the community.

[Max Lloyd]

Damian, Phil et al,
Are you aware that Cadline a UK reseller are launching a "Revit Society" on 7th February?
http://www.cadline.co.uk/default.aspx?cid=1013
I'm booked up for this. Who else is coming?

I find its always good to go for a beer after for those that may be interested! (any excuse!)

See you there.

Max.

[Damo]

I'm booked up for this. Who else is coming?

I find its always good to go for a beer after for those that may be interested! (any excuse!)

See you there.

Max.I had my name down for this, and later realised I was double booked on a seminar which will attended by a prospective client, so have had to drop out. Real unfortunate timing, especially with the forthcoming UK-RUG conference (details currently being trashed out).

[still.james]

an old post, but is this site going to be moved forward?

it seems dormant since 2007.

[tomnewsom]

I wonder if anyone ever actually won their competition. I entered, but heard nothing back.

[ejburrell67787]

I wonder if anyone ever actually won their competition. I entered, but heard nothing back.I thought it was published in AJ... I'm sure I saw it...

[Damo]

I thought it was published in AJ... I'm sure I saw it...Well, what can I say?

We had 4 individuals (3 partners in 3 practices and 1 head of a large CAD department) who had committed personal time to get something of worth set up for UK uses.
We had resellers willing to donate venues for meetings
Resellers willing to provide a few sandwiches and orange juice at gatherings
Resellers who would contribute a little cash to fund the usergroup.
And all they asked for was an opportunity to do a 20 – 45 minute presentation on Revit. No selling, No touting for business. Win-win for the UK Revit users. :)

But AutoDesk vetoed the Resellers from contributing, as they felt that resellers that knew Revit inside-out would make the newer resellers feel inadequate. :?
So AutoDesk got each reseller to set up their own Reseller Revit Club.

This diluted what we were trying to do with the UK-RUG. Would people come to our event (if we could get enough funds to hire a venue) or would they go to their reseller’s club?
I was told by 2 resellers that they didn’t particularly want to organise a Resellers Revit Club, it’s not their core business, and they would much rather have the UK-RUG organise events where they could speak. The resellers could invite potential Revit purchasers to the UK-RUG events where they could speak to users and be convinced to make the move to Revit. This would be the resellers reward.

And where are these Reseller Revit Clubs now? A brief flurry initially and it’s all died away.

And then came the Competition!
The big A asked us to host the competition, email everyone etc. They would get their marketing guys to promote it via the AJ etc.

We changed the UK-RUG web site to Autodesk corporate layout for the competition, attended competition meetings, received the entries via our web site, compiled the entries, spent time shortlisting entries and finally awarding a points score, passed on the entries to Autodesk for their scoring ………
……. and heard nothing.

I went along to the awards ceremony last year in London, and the UK-RUG wasn’t even mentioned once during the presentation. (There is a single mention of UK-RUG in the AJ flyer produced for the awards, and that’s it).

There was unconditional:
- Enthusiasm
- Willingness
- Personal and business Time
- Passion
- Resources
- Motivation
- Support
- And lot’s more
By people who were enlightened by the software and wanted to see it grow.

But this was all lost in ‘some bigger picture’.
Or maybe it was the Bureaucracy
Or perhaps just blindness.

Sad! :(