Hello Duchesses,

This 3rd Duchess newsletter is to announce and remind you about our upcoming events in the Netherlands.

Contents:

• Reminder: Spring Framework Event (September 5, 2008, Van Nelle Fabriek, Rotterdam)
• Groovy & Grails Workshop (October 9, 2008, VXCompany, Baarn)
• Seeking Donations

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Reminder: Spring Framework Event (September 5, 2008, Van Nelle Fabriek, Rotterdam)

It’s not too late to sign up for our Spring Framework Event.

For those of you who have signed up already, please reply to this email to let us know if you intend to come for dinner which will be served between 6-7pm.
When you arrive at Van Nelle Fabriek, tell the concierge you are coming for Ijsberg and give him your name. He will have a list of participants for the event.

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Groovy & Grails Workshop (October 9, 2008, VXCompany, Baarn)

We are proud to announce our second technical event - Groovy & Grails organized by VXCompany.

It will be at the VXCompany office in Baarn (near Utrecht). If necessary, we will organize pick-up/drop-off at Baarn train station.

This is a free event for Duchess members. To receive a free book on Groovy & Grails, register before September 25:

Register for the Groovy & Grails Workshop

This workshop consists of a presentation and a hands-on session given by Maarten Hoppen of VXCompany.

Date: October 9, 2008
Time: 17:00-22:00
Location:
VXCompany office
Baarnsche Dijk 8
3741 LR Baarn

The following is the schedule for the evening:

17:00 Dinner
18:00 1st Workshop - presentation and examples
19:30 Break
20:00 2nd Workshop - hands-on session with Groovy & Grails
21:00 Drinks and book hand-out
22:00 End

Directions to VXCompany.

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Seeking Donations

We are currently seeking donations to cover our operations costs. Would you or your company like to contribute? Any company or individual who donate will appear on our sponsors page. Please consider supporting our efforts. To donate, please reply to this email to get in touch.

Hope to see you at our upcoming events soon!

Cheers,

Duchess

http://www.jduchess.org

We are proud to announce our second technical event - Groovy & Grails sponsored by VXCompany.
It will take place at the VXCompany office in Baarn (near Utrecht). If necessary, we will organize pick-up/drop-off at Baarn train station.

This is a free event for Duchess members. To receive a free book on Groovy & Grails, register on this page before September 25.

When you have signed up but are not able to come, please cancel your registration!

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This workshop consists of a presentation and a hands-on session.Date: October 9, 2008
Time: 17:00-22:00
Location:
VXCompany office
Baarnsche Dijk 8
3741 LR BaarnThe following is the schedule for the evening:
17:00 Dinner
18:00 1st Workshop - presentation and examples
19:30 Break
20:00 2nd Workshop - hands-on session with Groovy & Grails
21:00 Drinks and book hand-out
22:00 End

Here is an introduction to the workshop from Maarten:

Groovy en Grails: Dynamisch en Agile

Statisch getypeerde talen (zoals Java) kennen hun grenzen op het gebied van productiviteit en expressiviteit. Met de opkomst van dynamische talen en innovatieve Webframeworks gebaseerd op deze talen, is het mogelijk om op een krachtige en efficiënte manier bedrijfsapplicaties te ontwikkelen.
Groovy is een dynamische taal voor de Java Virtual Machine. Groovy biedt een flexibele Java-achtige syntax die Java-ontwikkelaars kunnen leren in een kwestie van uren, en biedt mogelijkheden die ook zijn terug te vinden in andere dynamische talen zoals Ruby, Python of Smalltalk. Met Groovy behoud je de investeringen die je hebt gedaan in je kennis en vaardigheden, tooling en server software, terwijl het toch mogelijk is om innovatieve software te ontwikkelen en gebruik te maken van bijvoorbeeld DSL’s (Domain Specific Languages).
Grails is een geavanceerd en innovatief web-applicatie framework op basis van Groovy, en gebaseerd op bewezen Open Source producten zoals Spring, Hibernate, SiteMesh, Quartz en Ajax libraries. Grails maakt het mogelijk om met teams volgens Agile methodieken te werken en zodoende kwalitatief hoogwaardige applicaties te ontwikkelen in een korter tijdsbestek. Door gebruik te maken van principes als ‘Convention over Configuration’ vereenvoudigt Grails het ontwikkel proces om zodoende de focus te leggen op de zaken die er daadwerkelijk toe doen, namelijk het opleveren van ‘Bussiness Value’ voor de gebruiker en gebruiksvriendelijke (web)applicaties.

Directions to VXCompany

We are pleased to announce our first technical event sponsored by SpringSource - the creators of Spring. This is a free event for Duchess members.

At this event, Arjen Poutsma will talk about:

• 5 (or so) Reasons to use Spring: a varied introduction to the Spring
  Framework, showing why you should use in your Java application.
• Spring Web Services: the portfolio project focussed on doing
  contract-first Web Service development.

This is meant for people with various levels of knowledge about Spring. There will be lots of examples and as interactive as possible.

SpringSource also offered to pay for dinner which will start at 18:00.

Date: September 5, 2008
Time: 18:00
Location:
Ijsberg office
Van Nelleweg 1210
3044 BC Rotterdam

We deliberately placed the event in Rotterdam so that our members in Belgium would perhaps like to come and meet up with us. 1 hour from Amsterdam. 1 hour from Antwerp.

Seating is limited, so please register early by logging in and signing up on this page.

Hello Duchesses,

This Duchess newsletter is to announce upcoming events for after the summer in the Netherlands and the discount to JAOO in Denmark.

Contents:

• * Spring Framework Event (September 5, 2008, Van Nelle Fabriek, Rotterdam)
• * 15% discount for JAOO (September 28 - October 3, 2008 Aarhus, Denmark)
• * Recap: Our presentation at JBoss User Group meeting (June 20, 2008)

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Spring Framework Event (September 5, 2008, Van Nelle Fabriek, Rotterdam)

We are pleased to announce our first technical event sponsored by SpringSource - the creators of spring. This is a free event for Duchess members. There is limited space, so please register early on the Duchess site:

Register for Spring Workshop.

At this event, Arjen Poutsma will talk about:

• * 5 (or so) Reasons to use Spring: a varied introduction to the Spring Framework, showing why you should use in your Java application.
• * Spring Web Services: the portfolio project focussed on doing contract-first Web Service development.

This is meant for people with various level of knowledge about Spring. There will be lots of examples and as interactive as possible.

Please consider coming to this event as a good turnout will enable us to organize more things for you in the future.

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15% discount at JAOO (September 28 - October 3, 2008 Aarhus, Denmark)

We have been offered 15% discount for Duchess members at the JAOO conference in Denmark. So if you are considering attending the conference, you can take advantage of the discount.

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Recap: Our presentation at JBoss User Group meeting (June 20, 2008)

On June 20th Clara and Linda gave presentation about Duchess and issues involving women in IT at the Benelux JBoss User Group Meeting in Rotterdam.
We were well received and got to practice our presentation. We feel that it is important to talk about the issues involving women in IT so that our male colleagues are also aware of them. Changes start with awareness. For those who are interested, the slides of our presentation will soon go up at Parleys.com as free space is available to all JUGs to publish their material. We’ll keep you posted.I got one very insightful comment from someone at the meeting. During the presentation, we talked about how girls are raised differently from boys and how girls inevitably love pink and want to become a princess. After the presentation, a member of the audience told me about a female colleague, a Java programmer who is feminine and loves pink. Perhaps, it is better not to fight the pink but to mention the possibility that a girl can become a princess AND a Java programmer.

Hope you see you all after the summer!

Regards,

Duchess
http://www.jduchess.org

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.

Read more »

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.

Read more »