A "groovy" time was had by all on July 14, 2008, the night of the Philippine Groovy Users Group's first meeting. The event was hosted and sponsored by Orange and Bronze Software Labs, and was initiated by speakers Michael Mallete of EB2, and Melvin Vivas, chairman of the Pinoy Java Users Group (PinoyJUG).

Groovy on Grails is a Java-based, high-productivity framework for web-based applications. LinkedIn is just one example of a popular website that harnesses Groovy's potential. According to the speakers, the meeting was set up to stoke local developers' interest in the language and to increase activity in the local Groovy scene.

The talks included an introduction to the Groovy language, as well as in-depth Groovy theory and application. Following the success of the first set of talks, Orange and Bronze CTO Butch Landingin assured that as far as PGUG meetups in O&B go, "This definitely will not be the last."