[Liverpool] Appeal for information about an old Liverpool LUG

[Richard Smedley]

Hello Bob,

On 14/04/12 07:58, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Apr 2012 23:39:38 +0100, Bob Ham wrote:
>> However, I have next to no information about which drinking holes were
>> visited after those meetings.  If you happen to recall, or can work out
>> which pub you guys went to after any particular meeting, that would be
>> wonderful.
>
> I recall going to the Slaughterhouse, but the meetings usually stayed in
> the Blue Fountain offices - maybe that's why people stopped coming :)

You could be right. :-)

I came up to a couple - I remember meeting one
of the Django developers from Canada there (Blue Fountain
had him working in Liverpool for a year). And I
remember bumping into Neil there - but I don't
recall that much about the meetings after all
this time.

I'm sure you know about Blue Fountain / Aidan McGuire's
latest work with ScraperWiki?

> There was also a LUG at Liverpool Uni, although I think it was restricted
> to students.

In 1999 or 2000, whilst developing GNU/Linux solutions for
primary schools with ICDC [1] in Liverpool, I e-mailed the Liverpool
LUG contact (Dr Simon someone, istr) about joining and was told
"we don't let outsiders in". That was when I started the (now
semi-dormant) South Cheshire LUG.

It's possible that they took seriously the conditions attached
to the funding that student bodies received which theoretically
make it difficult for them to open up to non-students.
However many Liverpool University student groups happily
drove a coach and four horses through those rules :)

I would imagine that they met in either the Students Union
building or the CS department.

They were advertised (in the magazines and elsewhere) as
something like "Liverpool Open Source Society".

I remember the WiSH LUG (Wigan and St Helens) forming,
but elsewhere on Merseyside there was one based in Halton
in the late 90s, though I never managed to get a reply
from the contact address.

Hope there's something there of use to the archive?
I'm planning on trying to recover data from some long-defunct
PCs later this year - if I find a relevant e-mail I'll
dig it out for your archive.

  - @RichardSmedley

[1] which is a spin-off from the Poly (or Lpl John Moores Uni),
     but I don't think anyone at the Lpl University society
     would have minded about that?