<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">Hi Andy<br><br>I know that I know nothing about computers but it was a great meeting. I love hear the techy gargon it was and is great to meet down there as it a community building kinda sums up that open source GNU Linux ideology<br><br>Thanks for arranging it and sorry that you say you felt ill, Mark Keating seemed to have some great vision progression for the group<br><br>Shalom Rik<br><br><div style="text-align: center;">Rik Boland<br>15 Stanley Place, Lancaster, LA1 5PN Mobile 07866439588<br><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">We need Justice</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">but we also need</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Grace and Mercy from God</span> to do this.<br></div><br><br>--- On <b>Wed, 18/2/09, Ken Hough <i><kenhough@btinternet.com></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote
style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;">From: Ken Hough <kenhough@btinternet.com><br>Subject: Re: [Lancaster] meeting last night<br>To: lancaster@mailman.lug.org.uk<br>Date: Wednesday, 18 February, 2009, 2:18 PM<br><br><pre>Andy,<br><br>That pretty well sums up what I remember of the meeting. Well done and thanks <br>for your efforts.<br><br>With the quite limited active support that the group has, for now at least <br>it's really not feasible to plan on any definite long term programs.<br><br>Regards<br><br>Ken hough<br><br>On Wednesday 18 February 2009 12:39:49 andy baxter wrote:<br>> Hi all,<br>><br>> Just posting to say what happened last night. Seven people turned up,<br>> including three who were new to the group. I talked briefly about my<br>> idea of having a venue where we could meet regularly in a more focussed<br>> way, either doing technical talks, demos, or helping each
other with<br>> projects we were working on. An interesting but not entirely conclusive<br>> discussion then followed. Sorry that I wasn't in a better mood to keep<br>> things a bit more on track.<br>><br>> A few things did come out of the discussion. I'll summarise what I can<br>> remember, and maybe other people can add the bits I've missed.<br>><br>> - Most people seemed to feel that there wasn't the energy or the<br>numbers<br>> in the group at the moment to keep a fortnightly meeting going, and that<br>> if we're going to have other meetings than the monthly pub meets, it<br>> would be more realistic to think of doing these once a month or once<br>> every two months.<br>><br>> - I'm thinking this probably means that at the moment at least,<br>it's not<br>> worth paying for a broadband account at the basement, or making a formal<br>> proposal to them about using the space on a regular basis, though
we<br>> could maybe consider it as a venue for occasional meetings. The main<br>> thing I wanted from the meeting was some kind of decision on whether<br>> it's worth the effort and expense of doing this, so I'm glad to<br>have a<br>> decision on this at least, even though it's not what I was hoping for.<br>><br>> - We talked a fair bit about what the group could be doing besides the<br>> pub meets. It was suggested that we need to be fairly clear about what<br>> we're trying to achieve here - e.g. outreach to people who don't<br>know<br>> about linux is a different thing to having technical talks for people<br>> who are already interested. There seemed to be more interest in the<br>> second of these than the first.<br>><br>> - A few people suggested talks that they might be able to give -<br>> summarising pros and cons of different distros, digital photography,<br>> advanced networking stuff like how the
email system works, more on linux<br>> audio, and how to install debian on a reflashable embedded network<br>> storage device.<br>><br>> - Mark Keating suggested that another possible venue would be a room at<br>> the offices his company have on White Cross. (Thanks for this). My<br>> feeling is that this would probably be better for the moment at least -<br>> one of the reasons I was thinking of the Basement is that it is near the<br>> centre of town, so easier to find for people who might want to drop in<br>> occasionally to a regular meeting. Also that we could set up the<br>> computers there how we want, but this isn't so important for doing<br>> occasional talks as for a more regular venue. Neither of these reasons<br>> apply so much for occasional, more technically focussed meetings, which<br>> seemed to be the general consensus on what we should be aiming at.<br>><br>> - Another thing that was
discussed was the idea that if we're doing<br>> outreach type activities, we should make these about open source in<br>> general rather than linux in particular, as this is an easier way into<br>> open source stuff for most people, who may be reluctant to change their<br>> OS and lose all the skills they have learned with it. As far as I<br>> remember there was general agreement that this was the right way to go.<br>><br>> That's about all I can remember at the moment. The main positive thing<br>> that came from the meeting was that there was a pretty definite interest<br>> in having monthly or bi-monthly technical talks / demos, so maybe we<br>> could talk on the list or at the next meeting about how to get these<br>going?<br>><br>> Thanks to everyone who came, and see you in a couple of weeks.<br>><br>> andy<br>><br>> _______________________________________________<br>> Lancaster mailing list<br>>
Lancaster@mailman.lug.org.uk<br>> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/lancaster<br><br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Lancaster mailing list<br>Lancaster@mailman.lug.org.uk<br>https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/lancaster<br></pre></blockquote></td></tr></table>