Windows Apps London (formerly Windows Phone User Group) - it was good while it lasted

TLDR: User groups were great. I miss organising and going to them. Maybe I should revisit my plans about this...

I've organized over 100 user group events / meetups. I've also attended and spoken at many others.

The one I had the most to do with was the Windows Phone User Group, which later evolved/became Windows Apps London.

I "ran" this for as long as it existed. It all seems a very long time ago, but as I finish shutting up the virtual shop on the group (Stop paying for things--like domains--that I really don't need and no one looks at) I wanted to take a moment to reflect.

Here are a few of many pieces of similar feedback.

“Great to hear dev thoughts & experiences & see some interesting apps demo’ed”

“Met lots of cool people, and was well worth the trip.”

“Great bunch of people. Lots of enthusiasm and the usual witty banter”

“Meeting was great – fantastic bunch of WP7 developers, designers and officianados!”

“I really enjoyed everyone’s demos; even the games, which is not my domain, provided some interesting info about phone dev.”

“Thanks very much for putting on the event. I found it really useful as well as wonderfully motivating.”

“A great opportunity to meet and socialise with other developers.”

“We had a great time, really informative stuff, we learnt several things both from the talks and from general networking that we’re going to apply to our current and forthcoming projects.”

“Really appreciate the effort put into the event, great to meet everyone”

“It was great being able to network with intellectual individuals”

“It was really awesome. I now have the knowledge to create a better app.”

“It was very informative and enjoyable”

“Fantastic group. Always learn new things and pick up information”

“I like the format where someone knowledgeable us something we didn’t know already”

“One of the most interesting meetings I’ve been to”

“Wealth of knowledge to gain, recommended this to all developers”

“Good format, very useful.”

“Great event! Enjoyed the learning and the interaction with the other participants.”

“Thoroughly enjoyed the evening. Learnt a lot and looking forward to the next one.”

“Lots of fun, excellent talk and great people”

“I think this is a great event necessary for the platform. The atmosphere was good and enabling for sharing ideas.”

“Entertaining and inspiring talk”

“Really enjoyed the format! Great to hear everyone’s thoughts.”

“My mind is pretty blown away right now, very interesting evening with so much to takeaway and think about”

“Probably one of the best groups. Each meeting is useful for learning new things and getting a different point of view”

“Would love to see some more of these events”

“Fantastic presentation. Really helpful to pick up new tips.”

“Interesting conversation was flowing freely around the table. A really good night.”

“Great food, company, conversation and laughs!”

I couldn't let all the history of something that was a big part of my life for a very long time go away completely, so I've created an archive of the website at https://mrlacey.github.io/winappsldn/
Not that I really expect this to be of much interest or use to anyone any more, but it felt too important (to me) to let it go away completely.