Ten years in and only getting started!

On the 19th of September, 2023 we celebrated our ten-year anniversary with some quality food, drinks and company at the The Globe Lounge. With RSVPs at our maximum of 100, the venue was standing-room only as MC, Cristian Southall, welcomed both familiar and new faces.

Cristian remarked that our user group welcomed 320 new members in 2023, and had grown membership by 48% since our 2022 'reboot'. He acknowledged the 36 members from the original 2013 cohort that remain, pioneers of the sixth longest-running AWS user group in the APAC region (after Japan, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Manila).

By number of events and participation, our group is now the most active technology community in Western Australia! With thanks to our organisers and members for their commitment and camaraderie, we are proud to be known as much for our friendly and approachable nature as for the number and quality of our events.

Many were surprised to hear how much had been achieved since 2022, with some notable milestones including:

• 19 events (including record-setting attendances in 2023).
• Our first foray into hands-on workshops, launching the CloudCraft Workshop Series with 'Alien Attack: A Serverless Adventure'.
• Our first conference session, delivering 'Alien Attack: A Serverless Adventure' at Latency Conference 2023.
• Welcoming our first international presenter and first interstate presenter.
• Supporting our first presenter at an international AWS community event (namely, AWS Community Day Singapore 2023).
• Launching our website.
• Launching our new brand, including our new logo featuring Maali, the black swan.
• Launching our YouTube channel for recording and streaming.
• Organising our first collab sessions with other meetups.
• Our first nomination for an AWS community award at the AWS Community Summit 2022.

After moderating an engaging panel discussion with community stalwarts Sarah Bassett, James Bromberger and Brett Looney (see picture below), our MC turned our gaze to the years ahead, noting that with the ongoing support of membership and sponsors, the organising committee looks forward to further diversifying our membership, providing differentiated learning opportunities for both seasoned and emerging practitioners, and broadening our offerings to the community (including more workshops!).