[Liverpool] Apologies and some thoughts

[tony burrows]

If I'm right, we have a meeting next week.  In that case, sorry but I 
can't be there, I'll be in Nice.

I was thinking about the group and the fact that attendance seems to 
have dropped off over the last few months.  It feels to me a bit like 
we're losing our way here.  We have had some nice presentations in the 
past, but perhaps we need to formalise things a bit.  Such as:

1 - work out a set of presentations for a few months ahead, so that we 
can get others in.  General and technical ones.
2 - Resurrect the idea of a table in one of the computer fairs to 
provide help for newcomers, though I know that abacus fairs seem to be 
dropping off as well.
3 - Possibly a tie-up with the local BCS branch.  This month (tonight) 
they are having a discussion on the whole concept of open-source and 
whether it works (blind leading the blind to some extent, when I 
mentioned it a couple of years ago the misconceptions were incredible)
4 - Is there a way we can get some local publicity?  Even just a report 
of a presentation in the local free press?
5 - There are some local science/technology fairs for schools.  Could we 
have a presence there?
6 - A more formalised problem session at the meetings?

And then I run out of thoughts.

Tony