Drupal meetups

there has been a lot of talk on the south african drupal group about a meetup in south africa for a very long time now. nothing seems to have come of these ideas though some people made quite an effort to try and get something together. i think that it is good to have meetups with other web developers and designers (not necessarily even drupal people, but the idea is for a drupal centric meetup). for one it is a good networking opportunity where you find people with similar interests as you and new business can be created there, second it is also nice to be able to share stories and stuff like that.

it would be great if the drupal association or the many drupal user groups around the world encouraged meetups in the way that FreshView (the campaignmonitor.com guys) do it: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/givingback/.

also i would be interested in having a drupalcon in this country as well as kick starting some code sprints - why should the developers overseas be having all the fun?? its time to get involved, to network and to give back.

anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter, tell me what yu think.

J