Ye' old general discussion board. Basically, for everything that isn't covered elsewhere. Come here to shoot the breeze, shoot your mouth off, or whatever suits your fancy. This forum is not for asking programming related questions.
Just so you're aware, neophyte, if you're the "manager" of a group on meetup, it's not free.* Granted, it is fairly cheap in the end of things, but it's still not free.
* The last time I was reading through there site was probably six months ago, so things may have changed, but I doubt it.
meetup.com wrote: 6 months for only $12.00/month
(billed in one payment of $72.00)
3 months for only $15.00/month
(billed in one payment of $45.00)
1 months for only $19.00/month
(billed in one payment of $19.00)
I attend BostonPHP meetups. They're real fun, and if you have enough interested people you should definitely start your own!
neophyte wrote:I don't know anybody in my area that does PHP professionally.
Meets aren't just for professionals. In fact, they're an excellent way to network and find out about jobs if you're not a professional but want to be. If I was starting a PHP user group I'd start off by:
1. Put an ad in the local paper's 'events' section. It's usually free.
2. Put a notice up on the events notice boards of any local college/university that teachs IT based stuff.
3. Send an email to the contact email addresses of local web design/development companies.
4. Put a listing up on the phpusergroups.org user groups thing (no idea if this is up-to-date though).
5. Contact the nearest 3 or 4 groups and see if they have members who are travelling from your area already. If there's not enough interest locally maybe you could share travel costs with one or two other people.