Good question. Short answer is I joined the forum and went to my first official competition in the same month (November 2014). I joined the forum after registering for the competition, but 2 weeks before the competition took place.
I found the forum in May 2013 while Googling to see if there were any other South African cubers and came across
this thread. Things seemed kind of hopeless back then. I didn't think of myself as a
speedcuber back then so I didn't bother joining the forum or the facebook group at that stage. I did browse the forum a bit. I discovered the ZZ method in a thread and learned it in July 2013. I don't know when I stopped visiting the forum, but I distinctly remember
this thread being posted, so it must have been August or later.
I went to my first unofficial comp in June 2014. It was at a shopping mall near my girlfriend's house. I didn't actually want to go, but she convinced me to at least try it. After the comp, the organiser said I should join the Facebook group, so I did.
I went to another unofficial comp in October 2014 (a kind of dry run for the huge comp the following month). I met
@DonnyStar there and he spoke about his efforts to find other South African cubers and mentioned making the forum post. A week or so later, I went back to the speedsolving forum again, and actually signed up. I did quite a bit of lurking, but didn't post anything though.
Two weeks later, I took part in my first comp, and then a couple weeks after that, I started posting here.
TL;DR
- Found forum May 2013, lurked until August
- First unofficial comp June 2014
- Signed up November 2014
- First official comp November 2014
- First post December 2014