Hello Duchesses and supporters,

This is our first official Duchess newsletter. We plan to keep these coming to keep you informed.

Contents:
- Statistics
- Duchess Foundation
- Presentation at JBoss User Group (+ dinner)
- Upcoming Technical Sessions: Spring and Groovy
- Requests for Technical Sessions
- Study Groups
- Local Branches

Statistics

Duchess is expanding. We now have 61 registered members from 19 countries. And we’ve had visitors from every continent (except Antarctica).

Duchess Foundation

In our Amsterdam headquarters we are busy setting up a foundation (”Stichting”) so we can do more with sponsorings and the like. We’re still looking for board members (in the Netherlands) to fill out our board of directors. So if you would like to get more involved in Duchess please contact us. (By replying to this email for example.)

Presentation at JBoss User Group meeting (+ Dinner)

This Friday (June 20th) Clara and Linda will give a presentation about Duchess and issues involving women in IT at the Benelux JBoss User Group Meeting in Rotterdam. If you are working with JBoss or want to know more about it, it’s a free event, so do drop by. (Sign up on the site to let us know you are coming.) Also afterwards we (the Duchess members) will be going out to dinner. So even if you can’t come to our presentation you’re welcome to join us for dinner. (Although it isn’t sponsored this time, so you’ll have to pick up your own bill.)

Upcoming Technical Sessions

We have two upcoming technical sessions on Spring and Groovy offered by SpringSource and VXCompany respectively. No dates have been set yet, but we are planning them to be after the summer. We’ll keep you posted.

Requests for Technical Sessions

We are busy organizing meetings with some technical content. Please let us know if you would like to participate and share your experiences. Do you have a presentation that you would like to share? You don’t have to be a guru on the subject, and the presentation doesn’t have to be long. Or if you would like to lead a discussion, that would also be an idea. On the other hand, if there subjects you are interested in, we can try to find someone to tell us about it. What would you like to see at our meetings?

Study Groups

There has been some interest for study groups to study for certifications: Sun certifications or Spring certification. If you are interested in joining us, please let us know.

Local Branches

As you can see, this newsletter is to keep you informed of Duchess activities in the Netherlands (although every member is welcomed), but also to give ideas for your own local activities. After the Netherlands, which has 21 members, Indonesia (8 members) is the next country with the most Duchess members. After that we have Belgium (5) and the United States (5). So if there are some enthusiastic members out there, we would love to help you set up your own local branches.

Regards,

Duchess
http://www.jduchess.org

P.S. If you haven’t had a chance to register at our website yet, now is the time! We’re getting more activities going and would love to see you at our events.

P.P.S. To our supporters, please spread the word to your female colleagues to join us. We appreciate your support.

Thanks to Elise IJsberg will be sponsoring the drinks at our diner after JSpring and VXCompany will sponsor 30 dishes. (So if ten people show up, we’ll have a three course diner for free and if more people show up, we’ll at least get our diner nearly free.)

http://www.de3vrienden.nl/Bussum/menu.htm

A few weeks ago, Lillian Angel of Redhat invited us to speak on the topic of Women in IT in the Java room at FOSDEM 2008.

As a result, Linda and I gave a short presentation about Duchess and the issues concerning women in IT today.

We were joined by about 12 women, with about 50 in all in the room. We were rather well received by people who cared about this. There were managers who would like to hire more women and long-time techies who would like to see more women enter the field. The women who were there have forged a presence in the field and shown what is possible for others. We spoke about communication skills, diversity in the team, and economic reasons for the small number of women in IT today. At the end, we engaged in a lively discussion about what can be done to get more women in IT and concluded that it will be hard work, but raising awareness is the first step

Here is the abstract.

Clara

After the J-Spring seminar we’ll have dinner together.

[edit]Elise has found us a nice restaurant that shouldn’t be too far from ‘t Spant: http://www.de3vrienden.nl/index.htm, she made a reservation for 5 to 15 people.[/edit]

The time I have entered is a suggestion. I chose it so we could spend some time at the drink that is sponsored by Athos and have some time to actually get to the restaurant afterward.

[edit]Elise has been very active, she has found us sponsors for the drinks and 30 dishes (to be divided amongst those who come). So thank you IJsberg for the drinks and VXCompany for the food![/edit]

With the launch of the new website, we can now officially become a JUG, and be ready for new members from around the world.

Of course, we want to celebrate all this with a launch party. Join us to get the ball rolling for Duchess - ladies in Java!

Read more »

The new Duchess site is officially launched.

Thank you for those who helped with the testing.

Read more »

Hi all,

I’ve added a new forum about goodies and the first topic in there is about a new batch of t-shirts I’m intending to have printed. So if you want one, head on over to check it out and let me know of your interest.

The new Duchess website is now ready for Beta testing before being transferred to permanent hosting.

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At JavaPolis I decided to attend the JUG-leader BOF (Birds Of a Feather), just to meet them as I thought it would be a good idea to know them and maybe have them send their female members over to us.

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