About tim.js

The beginnings

tim.js started in 2013. The first event, simply called First Meetup, took place on June 19th 2013, with more than 30 attendees, on a Wednesday evening at 18:30. To this day, all the following meetups, with very few exceptions, took place on Wednesdays at 18:30.

The meetup was initially organized by Raul Ciotescu and Cassian Lup from Netzinkubator, which had their office within the Startup Hub, a coworking space in Timisoara City Business Centre.

During the first few meetups, the group didn't even have an actual name. However, the 8th event showcases the meetup has finally got it's name: tim.js, which is short for Timisoara JavaScript Group. This name was chosen after a vote of the community from a few other choices.

For many years, the meetups took place within the offices of the companies that supported the event: [e-spres-oh], 3 Pillar Global, and Netzinkubator at Startup Hub.

Past supporters

Once we've reached a certain numbers of active users, the Start Hub didn't support us anymore, considering that we're mature enough to get support from elsewhere and leave the space for others meetups and events to be born.

Therefore, over the years we got support from many local companies which sponsored one or more tim.js events: Irian, WeVideo, Visma, Victory Square Partners, Ness.

Thank you all on the behalf of the JavaScript community.

Special events

Our standard meetup format include 2 talks of around 30 minutes each. However, during the years we had a few outstanding events that are worth highlighting:

• JS Fundamentals workshops: in 2016 several workshops called JavaScript Citizens and JavaScript Mechanics were organized by Andrei Pfeiffer, with the goal of helping participants better understand the fundamentals of the ECMAScript standard and the JavaScript language.
• ngParty special meetup: in September 2016 the 3 organizers of ngParty meetup, Mario Vejlupek, Viliam Elischer, and Martin Hochel came to Timisoara all the way from Prague/CZ to share their knowledge with the local community. We have a close relationship, even today.
• Static vs Dynamic types panel: in February 2017 we had a special panel with 2 prolific local figures: Radu Marinescu and Radu Fericean. It was fully recorded and published online.
• Codecamp Timisoara 2017: in October 2017 tim.js organized one of the tracks of Codecamp Timisoara. Before the event, we also had a special meetup in a panel format, with an open discussion with the invited speakers.
• Lightning Talks: to spice things up, some editions such as 41, 51 and 74 included 6 short 10-minutes talks, having a more dynamic content than our regular meetups.
• Technical Interviews open discussion: once in a while we also had open discussions. One notable meetup was the collaboration with local recruiters and HR managers to debate technical interviews.
• TypeScript Workshop: the latest workshop we've organized was in May 2023. It was a 2 day event, with Tițian-Cornel Cernicova-Dragomir, teaching the code mechanics of TypeScript, but also touching upon advanced concepts as well.
• 10 years celebration: we've celebrated 10 years of activity with a unique event: 10 lightning talks, 10 minutes per talk. This meetup gathered more than 80 attendees.

Networking events

In August and December tim.js meetups don't include the regular technical talks. Instead, we meet in various bars or pubs for casual gatherings outside the scope of JavaScript.

This is a great opportunity to connect deeper with community members, get to know each other, and discuss anything (un)related to JavaScript.

Collaborations

To support diversity, we had various collaborations with communities from and outside Timisoara. Some of these communities include:

• ngParty, the largest JavaScript meetup in Prague/CZ, which closed in 2021;
• JSConfBP, a JavaScript conference from Budapest, where we connected with the ngParty organizers;
• JSHeroes, the sister community from Cluj, which organize monthly meetups and an annual conference with the same name;
• Tabara de Testare Timisoara, an older local meetup, focused on testing practices, closed in 2022;
• UI/UX Timisoara the local web design meetup.

Event Posters

There was a time when we had time to create and print posters for each meetup edition. Most posters included a custom graphic, to visually describe the topics of the edition.

Thank you Lia Pfeiffer for designing them.

Organizing team

The organizers behind tim.js shifted many times during these 11 years. Below is the change log of the organizing team:

• 19 Jun 2013 - Raul Ciotescu and Cassian Lup start the meetup;
• Early 2014 - Andrei Pfeiffer joins as organizer;
• Late 2014 - Andrei Pfeiffer becomes the community lead;
• Early 2015 - Lucian Pacurar joins as organizer and Raul Ciotescu leaves the team;
• Mid 2021 - Anca Spatariu joins as organizer and Cassian Lup steps down;
• Jan 2024 - Anca Spatariu becomes the community lead and Adrian Faciu joins as organizer.

The current team of organizers consist of Anca Spatariu, Lucian Pacurar, Adrian Faciu, and Andrei Pfeiffer.

The current state

At the time of writing, we have several recurring supporters that cover the expenses for the events: Haufe, Doctari, Opswat, rankingCoach, and 3 Pillar Global. Our meetups usually take place in the offices of one of these companies. It's needless to say that we appreciate all the support from the local companies and we thank them their involvement in the local JavaScript community.

We're always looking for speakers. Therefore, if there's a topic that excites you and it has something to do with JavaScript, please submit your talk and share it at tim.js meetups.

Last, but not least, we'd like to give a special shoutout to all our members, old and new, beginners and experts. Thank you for joining us for such a long time. Thank you for bringing your friends. Thank you for sharing your knowledge as speakers. Thank you for supporting and being a part of Timisoara JavaScript Community. Let's write the next chapters of this history together.

Written by Andrei Pfeiffer, last updated on Dec 2024.