[SLUG] Contact details

[Al Girling]

On Fri, Aug 01, 2008 at 10:05:44AM BST, John Allsopp wrote:
> 
> >I'm not sure where the social element of LUG meetings will go - across
> >the country they sound like they only succeed in some pockets.
> >
> >  
> So where's this feeling that LUGs are becoming less popular coming from. 
> Al, you said it (first). What are the experiences of other LUGs, are 
> they dropping off too?

I think it's more a seasonal thing than a general lack of Linux
interest.

I went to the York social meeting this week and considering it's a
university city with a potentially large Linux user population there
were only six of us.

It's quite obvious with the Ryedale LUG that winter time gets more
people coming to meetings.  The Beverley LUG has always been very quite,
but I've not heard from them for months now.

I'm convinced that the numbers attending meetings reflect the enthusiasm
of those who organise them.  I subscribe to the Sussex LUG list and
their meeting this week had almost twenty attending, but they usually
have at least one talk or presentation of some description per meet.
This isn't to say that SLUG should go down the route of monthly meets
with presentations at each meet.  It's been tried before and there aren't
enough people here to make it happen.

There might be some mileage in the facebook/bebo/etc idea.  Personally I
think they're the spawn of satan, but accept that lots of people use
them, so they could well bring more people to the LUG.  At the end of
the day the LUG has to provide something for them, if they see that as
being just going to the pub and chatting with a bunch of folks with
pointy heads and hand woven sandles then they're unlikely to turn up.

The most successful groups seem to be those who mix social and technical
meets.  Somewhere to bring machines for fault solving and displays work
well it seems.

Toodle pip,

Al

-- 
Al Girling

Linux User: #290080             <http://counter.li.org>
Home-page:                      <http://al.sdf-eu.org>