The first-ever BuddyCamp was held last weekend in Vancouver, in conjuction with WordCamp Vancouver. It was a fantastic event in so many ways. Here are a couple of personal highlights for me:

• First and foremost, it’s always a thrill to spend face time with people I work with remotely. My Wisconsinite-in-arms John and I have worked closely for years on BuddyPress, and we see each other a few times a year at WP events. I’ve worked with Ray and Bowe for nearly as long, both on free software projects and client work, and this weekend was my first time meeting either in person. The list of other current-and-future-BP-community-members I met IRL for the first time this weekend is too long to spell out here. But there’s no question that these connections were the best part of the event.
• Had a great time on Hack Day, where I believe I gave props to eight different people in commit messages – several of whom were first-time contributors. Of special note was #4600, which took me and Stéphane Boisvert a good 90 minutes to sort out. That’s the kind of over-each-other’s-shoulders, team bugfixing that I wish I got to do more of.
• It was a pleasure to have Matt in attendance. Somehow, we’d never managed to meet each other before this weekend. He was generous with his thoughts on the state of BuddyPress and directions for further development, and he was gracious about those points where he and I disgreed (aside from the “intellectually lazy” line ;). Gave me lots to think about.
• I hesitate to call BuddyPress’s founding developer a “prodigal son”, but it was certainly a kick to commit Andy’s first contribution to the project in several years!

The fact that this kind of event took place in the first place – much less that it was so successful – is, I think, hugely important to BuddyPress. It demonstrates that there’s a vibrant community around the software and its uses, the kind of cohesion that makes meetups like BuddyCamp worth traveling for. So I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to the organizing team of BuddyCamp Vancouver, whose hard work enabled a really incredible weekend for a lot of folks (or at least for me!): Cyri Jones, Joey Kudish, Jill Binder, Roland Frazer, all the BCIT and Capilano University students who helped out, and to the sponsors who made it possible. Thank you all so much!

Now, who’s gonna organize the next BuddyCamp? 🙂