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Play board games with around 20 people on 5+ tables in Elsternwick. Friendly. Inclusive. Free entry, Crunchy Euro and Thematic games. Close to public transport and free parking. Exclusive use of a function room with good lighting at the Caulfield RSL. Join our group in the Aftergame App to stay in touch: https://aftergame.app/groups/bayside-games-1853 Games are sometimes organised in advance on our WhatsApp group or in the Aftergame app, however most games are organised following a brief discussion at the venue on the Monday night. Recently we have played the following games: Euros: Brass, Dune Imperium, Anachrony, Endeavor Deep Sea, Inis, On Mars, Ark Nova, Galactic Cruise, Viticulture, Scythe, Concordia, Terra Mystica, Gaia Project, Terraforming Mars, Castles of Burgundy, Lost Ruins of Arnak and Grand Austria Hotel, and Orleans Economic: Indonesia, Food Chain Magnate, Bus, Irish Gauge and Container. Thematic: Voidfall, Dune (Original), Root, Eclipse, Nemesis, Spirit Island, Undaunted, Chaos in the Old World, The Godfather, Spartacus and Dominant Species. **Arrive early** The best time to arrive is around 6:50pm as people discuss which games they would like to play before starting longer games at 7:00pm. Arrive early and we can ensure that you are included in a game. However, should you arrive after 7:00pm you may need to wait for games to finish to be included, or if people are playing long games, it might not be practical to start a new game. **Full bar and snacks available** The Caulfield RSL generously provide the venue free of charge. A selection of food and drinks are available for purchase at the bar. Note that only food or drink purchased at the RSL can be consumed at the venue. We look forward to seeing you!

**Struggling with study or learning? You’re not alone.** This meetup suits people at all levels of study skill. Too many children, teenagers, and adults find studying difficult—not because they lack ability, but because they were never taught **how to learn**. This meetup introduces the basics of **Study Technology**—a practical, proven approach that shows how learning really works and how to overcome common study barriers. It applies to children, teens (and parents), teachers, and adults alike. You’ll discover simple, effective methods to improve understanding, confidence, and performance—whether at school, work, or online. Teachers and parents often see rapid improvements in both behaviour and results. Yes, it *is* possible to improve study performance—in just **five easy steps**. If you can’t attend in person, online options are available. **Join us and learn how to study effectively—once and for all.** See you at the meetup, **Pam** When learning clicks, confidence follows.

A mix of dance classes, connections & laughter! We love offering a diverse range of moves to keep things fresh and exciting, and it’s always amazing to see our dance community connecting on and off the dance floor. It’s all about coming together, learning, and having fun! Brighton Beach Bowls Club 2B South Rd Brighton 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm Beginner & Intermediate levels $25 CASH or PAYID

Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompsons new film. “The Sheep Detectives brims with charm, wit, and a twisty murder mystery that can only be solved by the most endearing set of farm animals since Farmer Hoggett said “That’ll do” to Babe the pig.” [RogerEbert.com](http://RogerEbert.com) “What really lingers after The Sheep Detectives is its tone: earnest, uncomplicated sweetness, rooted in the love that we — whether human or sheep — have for those with whom we share our lives, and a gentle acceptance of loss as part of that love.” The Seattle Times. We will meet at the Nova Bar from 6 p.m. onwards. Please book your tickets early, Stefan - 0437777522

Welcome to Melbourne Volleyball Academy. 🤗 **[[WHAT]]** This session is specifically for games only (no training). There will be a cap of 18 players, allowing for 3 teams of 6. Games will be played to 15 points, with a cap at 18 points. These games are intended to be played at a high-intermediate(BB)/advanced(A) level. Please see an explanation of skill levels on our website here: https://melbournevolleyballacademy.com.au/skill-levels-explained **[[WHO]]** The session is intended for Intermediate players. Players should be able to: * Have strong fundamentals for all volleyball techniques * Serve receive a majority of serves well & serve over the net consistently * Basic understanding of 5-1, and 6-2 systems (we do not play a pass middle 4-2 system in this session) * Have an understanding of base defense * Know all/most volleyball rules Players that are not of the intermediate(BB)/advanced(A) level will be asked to leave as we want to ensure that all players have an enjoyable time playing. **[[HOW MUCH $$]]** $14 card payment will be processed on the day via square reader (EFTPOS). **[[WHEN]]** The stadium is booked from 7 PM-9 PM weekly, every Monday. However, feel free to come early and stretch as the Community Centre is open earlier. Last minute dropouts and no shows will have a zero-tolerance policy going forward. All players are expected to update their RSVP at least 24 hours in advanced if they are unable to attend. This applies to players on the going list and the waitlist. **[[OTHER DETAILS]]** Only those on the “going” list are permitted to play. If you are on the waitlist, or not registered at all, you will not be permitted into the gymnasium.

🤠 Monday nights — Boot Scootin’ Hustle (Line Dancing) Line dancing is an absolute blast — upbeat, energetic, and surprisingly addictive! Wonderfully warm, welcoming vibe — the kind of people you’ll want to dance with every week. Whether you’re a total beginner or just looking for somewhere fun to move, you’d fit right in! Brighton Beach Bowls Club 2B South Rd Brighton 6:00 pm – 6:45 pm $15 CASH or PAYID May Madness Sale = 4 x line dancing classes for $40

RSVP on our GDG community platform -> https://gdg.community.dev/events/details/google-gdg-melbourne-presents-gdg-melbourne-may26-meetup/ This event is hosted at the Mantel Group Office, with the recording of the talks to be shared afterwards on YouTube if you can't make it. There will be food, networking and some surprise swag!Agenda: 6:20 - Intro 6:30 - Talks 8:00 till late - networking & chat (& drinks optional)Speakers and Talks: Talk 1: Katie Barnett\, Engineering Manager @ Bilue\| Google Developer Expert for Android \| GDG Melbourne Co\-Organiser \| Women TechMakers Melbourne Ambassador What's New on Android Talk 2: Tulsi Sapkota, Senior Software Engineer @ Linktree Replace Yourself with Agents How we built an agent that monitors our Buildkite pipelines, reasons about inefficiencies, and raises PRs to fix it. A practical story about trust, confidence thresholds, and what happens when the agent is better at your job than you are. Talk 3: Saugato Paroi, IT Support Engineer @ PageUp Building AutoCloud: How I turned "why is deploying so hard?" into an AI-powered platform. It started with a frustration every developer knows — you build something that works beautifully on your machine, then hit a wall of IAM roles, Terraform files, networking configs, and CI/CD pipelines just to get it live. I watched that gap kill momentum for too many projects, including my own. So I decided to build the tool I wished existed. AutoCloud is an AI-powered platform that takes a local project or Git repo and turns it into a production-ready cloud deployment — no deep infrastructure expertise required. In this talk, I'll walk you through the journey: the problem that sparked it, the architectural decisions, the hard lessons, and how AI made it all possible. How to find us: Doors open at 5:45 PM at our host the Mantel Group, Level 2/452 Flinders St, Melbourne. Message via Meetup or Slack if you are arriving after 6:00, as the lifts won't let you up. This is an in-person only event. If you have any accessibility requirements, please reach out via the Meetup or Slack to the organiser group to discuss, and we will do our best to help you out. Agenda *** Speakers Katie Barnett - Google Developer Expert for Android (Engineering Manager, Bilue) Katie is passionate about all things Android. She has taken on a wide variety of challenging projects including in the live event, media and travel space. Her favourite thing is to see someone having a delightful experience using something she has worked on. Katie is very active in the development community, she is one of the organisers of GDG Melbourne and is a Women Techmakers Ambassador. Sh… Tulsi Sapkota - Linktree (Senior Software Engineer) Shaugato Paroi - PageUp (IT Support Engineer) Hosted By Katie Barnett, GDE Android / GDG Organiser Suesi Tran, Senior Flutter Developer Poornima Sivakumar, GDG Organiser Lovee Jain, GDG Organiser Zach Jensz, GDG Organiser Ujjawal Raj, GDG Organiser Bramley Turner-Jones, GDG Organiser Yuba Raj (UV) Panta, GDG Organiser Kartik Arora, Android Engineer Google Developer Expert in Android Android Engineer @ Bilue Carolyn Ai Chi Wong, Complete your event RSVP here: https://gdg.community.dev/events/details/google-gdg-melbourne-presents-gdg-melbourne-may26-meetup/.

Come along and have a glass of bubbles or a warm herbal tea as you join an exclusive and empowering gathering created especially for us Amazing women aged 50+. Its an all inclusive gathering to connect, reflect, and be real about this powerful stage of life. Reaffirming that this phase is meant to be lived and enjoyed, not endured! This chapter often brings a mix of shifts, changing relationships, evolving identities, hormonal transitions, and a body that may feel unfamiliar at times. Many women are navigating children leaving home, redefining purpose, or simply asking, “What now?” Together, we’ll share stories, laughter, and honest conversation in a supportive and welcoming environment. This is a place to feel seen, understood, and uplifted — to explore what’s changing, what’s emerging, and what truly matters moving forward. You don’t need to have it all figured out or to silently navigate through this phase on your own. So come as you are, enjoy a glass of bubbles or if you prefer something non-alcoholic and connect with the Sisterhood. Spots are limited so don't miss out :))

🎉 **Melbourne AWS User Group – May Meetup** 🎉 📅 **Wednesday, 27 May** 📍 **NAB Events Hub – 395 Bourke Street, Melbourne** ⏰ **Food at 6:00 pm, talks from 6:30 pm (with live stream)** We're fresh from the excitement of **AWS Summit Sydney**, and the energy is still high! This month, we’re keeping that momentum alive by bringing a piece of the Summit back to Melbourne, alongside an inspiring journey of a cloud newcomer. This month, we’re following the path from a first-ever cloud deployment to managing complex, event-driven IoT systems. Whether you’re just starting your cloud journey or looking to refine how you monitor production-scale data platforms, there’s something here for you. **This month’s lineup features:** * **Nolan Cui**, sharing his authentic "From Zero to First Deploy" journey, highlighting the lessons learned and mistakes made during his first steps into the cloud. * **Matthew Gillard**, presenting an extended version of his **AWS Summit Sydney** talk on data observability, specifically focusing on practical patterns for event-driven IoT platforms. A huge thank you to our sponsors: 🥇 **Mantel Group** – Gold Sponsor, 🥈 **Cevo** – Silver Sponsor, 🏛 **NAB** – Venue Sponsor. The event will be live-streamed on YouTube as always. 🗓️ **Agenda** * **6:00 pm** – Food & Socialising * **6:30 pm** – Introductions * **6:40 pm** – What’s New in AWS * **6:55 pm** – **From Zero to First Deploy: My AWS Beginner Journey** (Level 100); Speaker: **Nolan Cui** * **7:20 pm** – **Data Observability Without the Pain** (Level 200); Speaker: **Matthew Gillard** * **7:55 pm** – Marketplace (Who’s Hiring) * **8:00 pm** – Networking + Close 🎤 **Talk Details** **From Zero to First Deploy: My AWS Beginner Journey** **Speaker:** Nolan Cui **Level:** 100 Nolan is still quite new to AWS, but his passion for cloud tech has led him from "just exploring" to building his first working cloud setup. In this lightning talk, he walks through his first hands-on experiences, the mistakes he made, and the valuable lessons he learned along the way. Nolan will also briefly touch on how he plans to apply these lessons by moving oward a fully serverless design for his upcoming real-world projects. **Data Observability Without the Pain: 3 practical patterns from a production IoT platform** **Speaker:** Matthew Gillard **Level:** 200 Modern IoT platforms are inherently data platforms. When events flow through APIs, queues, Lambda functions, and device networks, tracing a single event can become a nightmare. This fast-paced talk provides three practical observability patterns drawn from building and operating a production healthcare IoT platform that processes tens of thousands of events daily. Using **OpenTelemetry**, **AWS X-Ray**, and **Honeycomb**, Matt will explore techniques for gaining visibility into asynchronous event pipelines and correlating activity across distributed services. You’ll leave with concrete patterns you can apply immediately to your own event-driven systems. > **Note:** This is an extended, deep-dive version of the talk Matt is presenting at **AWS Summit Sydney**! 🙌 **Want to Speak at a Future Meetup?** We’re always looking for new speakers and believe everyone has an interesting talk waiting to be shared. If you’d like to present at a future event, reach out at the meetup or via our website: 👉 [https://melb.awsug.org.au/speak/](https://melb.awsug.org.au/speak/)

Visitors and newcomers are very welcome, please see https://hackmelbourne.com/newcomer-faq/ for more details. COVIDSafe restrictions are also in place, please see https://hackmelbourne.com/covid-19-restrictions/ for the latest. Short walk from Glenferrie train station. Car parking at Hawthorn town hall. Bring a laptop and a project you are working on. There is also a number of group projects that you are welcome to join in. We have starter kits for Arduino, a couple of 3D printers, various tools and equipment available for use. Typically our sessions run from 6:45pm till later in the evening (depending on our members' availability to close) but if you're new please come early.

EVERY FRIDAY! FREE dance classes & social dancing and Reggaeton every week with Obsesión Latina - Salsa & Bachata & OYE Latino at The Albion Rooftop - South Melbourne! Main room: 6:45pm Doors open. Come in for a drink! 7:00pm 2 levels of Salsa classes 8:00pm 2 levels of Bachata classes 9:00pm Non-stop Bachata & Salsa 11:00pm Reggaeton all night! Rooftop: 11:00pm After the Bachata & Salsa in the main room, we can head upstairs to the rooftop for some more Bachata & Salsa until late. FREE entry all night every Friday! Book your class spots to helps us manage the class ratios and also because we may need to start capping numbers as we sometimes have over 140 students! First-timers welcome! No need to bring a partner, but the more the merrier! Dress as you would usually going to a bar or club. Guys smart casual, no trackies! https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/free-salsa-bachata-classes-social-every-friday-in-south-melbourne-tickets-1978557074471?aff=oddtdtcreator

**🏢 Hosted at:** Fabric Group **🚀 Building the Wrong Thing Faster: AI and the Build Trap** AI has dramatically compressed the time it takes to build software. But it hasn't stopped us building products that nobody wants. If anything, it's accelerated the problem - to the point we've invented a new word for the output: ***slop***. Drawing on observations from Brendan's consulting work and conversations with friends at ***Google, Meta and Spotify***, He'll explore how this ***isn't really a new problem*** and why now, more than ever, we need human centricity, sound product strategy and product discovery. **🎤 Speakers:** ***Brendan Marsh*** is a Product & Org Advisor and Director at ***Organa***, where he helps organisations improve product strategy, org design and execution at scale. He previously served as ***Chief Product Officer*** of a mental health non-profit and spent five years at ***Spotify*** during its hyper-growth phase, first as an ***Agile Coach*** supporting innovation and product discovery teams and later as a ***Product Manager*** responsible for the Mac and Windows clients (40M+ MAU). ***Ruben Cardoso*** is the ***Head of Product & Design*** at ***Fabric Group***. An experienced UX/UI designer specialising in product design and delivery, with a strong track record running discovery-to-delivery cycles for large enterprise clients. ***Dzmitry Yaltykhau*** is the ***Delivery Practice Lead*** at ***Fabric Group.*** Leads large-scale product design and delivery programs end-to-end from presales through discovery, build and rollout while driving best practices, coaching and AI-accelerated ways of working across the team. **🗓 Agenda:** Arrival and light refreshments Featured Talk Panel discussion with contributions from Fabric and the audience

**Important time note:** Please plan on arriving between 5:30 and 6:00 as the elevators lock after 6 and you'll need to message us and we'll need to come get you. The building address is 4450 Bridge Park The entrance is 6620 Mooney St, Suite 400 You will need to scan your ID at the door to get a visitor badge. **Abstract** Like it or not, AI agents are now capable of turning a quickly written paragraph of requirements into a pull request that is ready to be integrated into real-world production applications and it's now our responsibility to make sure AI doesn't go rogue and take down prod - or corrupt our data by misunderstanding the requirements or our existing schemas. In this session we'll explore strategies to protect our codebases through unit and integration testing, documentation, and code review along with additional ways of providing context and guard rails to our AI agents as they carry out the work we've assigned them to do. By the time we're done, you'll have a firm grasp of the problem and understand some helpful options for protecting your codebase from vibe coding mishaps getting YOLOed into prod. **YouTube Link** TBD

Most people use AI like a search box: they type one sentence, hope for the best, and get frustrated when the answer is generic, wrong, or useless. But getting better results from tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and other AI systems is not about memorizing magic prompts. It is about learning how to give the AI better context. In this beginner-friendly session, we’ll break down how to make AI dramatically more useful by improving the way you communicate with it. You’ll learn how to give clearer instructions, provide examples, set constraints, ask for better output formats, and use follow-up questions to turn a mediocre answer into a genuinely useful one. We’ll cover practical techniques you can use immediately for work, learning, writing, coding, planning, research, and everyday problem solving. We’ll also touch on why these same ideas show up in more advanced AI systems, including RAG, agents, evaluations, and AI workflows. No technical background required. Bring your curiosity, your questions, and maybe one real task you wish AI was better at helping you with. **What you’ll learn:** * Why “better prompting” is really about better context * How to structure requests so AI gives more useful answers * How to use examples, constraints, and output formats * How to iterate when the first answer is not good enough * How these skills connect to more advanced AI workflows This meetup is for anyone who wants to move beyond basic ChatGPT usage and start getting more practical value out of AI. LOGISTICS AND PARKING: The talk starts at 7:00 PM. The first half hour is reserved for everyone to get set up and mingle. Free pizza and drinks! The cheapest parking option is to find street parking, which will only cost you a few bucks. Otherwise, park in the nearby veteran's museum lot for $8. It's highly recommended you avoid the nearby $15 garage parking.

Couldn't make Knowledge? Or want to debrief the dancing robots or Autonomous Workforce? Join us for a Knowledge '26 recap, insights sharing, a couple rounds of golf, and fun at Topgolf. As always, drinks and food will be provided. More details to come — mark your calendar, RSVP, and save your spot today!

QA or the Highway is a one-day, affordable, regional, professional conference featuring real-world experience and thought leadership in the QA and testing industry. This is a ticketed event please register here: https://www.qaorthehwy.com/ Featured Keynote Speakers: **Matthew-Hope Eland** **(Wizard at Leading EDJE)** \- An AI Specialist and Wizard at Leading EDJE who is known to teach software engineering\, AI\, and data science concepts in the most ridiculous ways possible\. Matt has used machine learning to settle debates over whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie\, reinforcement learning to drive the behavior of digital squirrels\, data analytics to suggest improvements to his favorite TV show\, and AI agents to play board games and create an AI agent with the personality of a dog\. Matt is the author of "Data Science in \.NET with Polyglot Notebooks" and "Refactoring with C\#" as well as several LinkedIn Learning courses\. Matt helps organize the Central Ohio \.NET Developer Group\, runs several blogs and a YouTube channel\, has a Master’s of Science in Data Analytics\, and is a current Microsoft MVP in AI and \.NET\. **Tatyana Arbouzova** **(CEO at Innovate QA)** \- Tatyana Arbouzova is an engineering and business leader with a strong background in Quality Engineering across multiple industries\, including Big Tech\, Healthcare\, and Entertainment\. She has held leadership roles at world\-class companies such as Microsoft\, VMware\, Disney\, and The Pokémon Company International\, where she focused on building quality\-driven cultures and scaling teams to deliver high\-impact products\. With decades of experience\, Tatyana has helped organizations transform their quality practices so teams can deliver software efficiently\, confidently\, and with measurable business outcomes\. Today\, Tatyana advises software companies on adopting AI to optimize quality practices and improve how software is delivered at scale\. She is also a passionate community builder and the founder of Innovate QA\, a thriving Seattle\-based community and conference for quality professionals\.