| ### What's happening? |
| To celebrate the release of Go 1.8 we're to organising a world wide release party on February the 16th, 2017. |
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| #### Hang on, did you say Go 1.8 ships on the 16th of February? |
| Nope! Go 1.8 is in good shape to ship in early February, but no firm release date has been published; it might be as early as the 1st of Feb, or it might not. |
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| ### Sounds awesome, how can you get involved? |
| - If you host a Go user group or meetup, schedule a meetup on the 16th of Feb, or as close to it as convenient, and celebrate with Gophers around the world. |
| - If you're a member of a Go user group or meetup, pester your organiser and let them know you'd like to participate. |
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| After the event post a photo, make a video, write a blog post, scribble on your Facebook wall, or tweet something pithy. Let's see how big we can make the celebration. |
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| Don't forget to add your meetup's details :point_down: right here. |
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| #### Who's involved? |
| Here is a list of the groups who are participating. |
| - Nobody so far, be the first to add your meetup page. |
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| _If your group is not listed here yet, edit the page and add yourself._ |
| _Organisers, once you've added your group, consider tweeting out a link to the page to raise awareness._ |
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| ### Stay in touch |
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| Trying to co-ordinate dozens of meetup groups around the globe will be challenging. Here are some ways you can plan your event, and keep up to date. |
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| As always, if you get stuck, or need help, please [contact the organisers directly](https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/Go-1.8-release-party#no-seriously-whos-organising-this), we're here to help. |
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| ##### Slack Channel |
| We have a channel for the [release party](https://gophers.slack.com/messages/go-release-party/) on the [Gophers Slack](https://gophers.slack.com/messages/go-release-party/). If you need an invite to Slack, [you can request an automatic invite with this link](https://invite.slack.golangbridge.org/). |
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| ##### Mailing list |
| We have set up a [mailing list for meetup organisers](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/go-meetup-organisers) to ask questions. |
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| ### What happens in a release party? |
| As with the previous [Go 1.6](https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/Go-1.6-release-party) and Go 1.7 release parties, this is a great opportunity to spread the word about the improvements landing 1.8, and the plans for the 1.9 development cycle. |
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| #### Resources |
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| A sample slide deck that you can use is [available here](https://talks.godoc.org/github.com/davecheney/go-1.8-release-party/presentation.slide#1) ([source](https://github.com/davecheney/go-1.8-release-party)) |
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| _Please send PR's with corrections/additions_ |
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| [Here's a link to the _draft_ Go 1.8 release notes](http://beta.golang.org/doc/go1.8). |
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| ### What'll happen if Go 1.8 comes out before the 16th? |
| This is likely to happen, but many meetups have a January date scheduled and don't want to hold two meetups so close together. The 16th is an arbitrary date that a quorum of meetups could find that didn't conflict with their existing schedules. |
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| If you're a meetup organiser and can hit the Feb 16th, awesome, but your participation is more important than being able to organise your group for an exact date. |
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| ### What'll happen if Go 1.8 isn't out by the 16th? |
| Well ... at least we'll have each other. |
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| The feature set of Go 1.8 isn't going to change in over the next month. If Go 1.8 ships after the 16th, it will be a little anticlimactic that we jumped the gun, but it's not a big deal. |
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| ### Who's organising this? |
| Well, if you run a Go meetup, you are. It can't be a worldwide release party without meetups around the globe. |
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| #### No, seriously, who's organising this? |
| Here are the organisers so far: |
| - [Dave Cheney](mailto://dave@cheney.net) - @davecheney |
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| _Want to help? Edit this page and add yourself_ |
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| If you have questions, please reach out to one of the organisers. |