[Nelug] Rowing Club

[Brian Ronald]

On Tue, 2007-09-04 at 06:44 +0100, Dougie Nisbet wrote:
> It sounds like the Tyneside LUG has already been down this road. So
> have 
> NELUG to a certain extent, during the 6 months when the rowing club
> was 
> closed. 

Yes, and it's a road full of frustrating obstacles.  Whilst we always
gave each venue a decent chance (it was better for members if we didn't
move every month) we were often prepared to uproot ourselves.  We spent
a lot of time meeting in various coffee shops, which is how we came to
the museum in the first place.  The museum approached us when they
outsourced the cafeteria, to provide us with a new home.  This was a
big, unexpected break.

One thing we did try was approaching various businesses in the city
centre.  There are lots of them, so this approach might have paid off
eventually, but those who did actually respond were sympathetic but
unwilling to trust a bunch of computer guys to use a room in their
premises.  They assumed, in every case, that we'd want to use their
network.

It's possibly an approach that could be used, certainly if handled with
a bit more finesse than I could muster.  The rowing club is just another
business, and might not be the only place with a suitable room.

The biggest problem you have, and possibly the only problem you have, is
raising at least £10 on average every month.  Talking to one of the guys
from our LUG last night, he said he'd be prepared to pay £1 to £1.50
just to attend a social LUG meeting, so it's not like you'd scare
everybody away.  Only thing is how many you're going to get turning up,
and how much the organisers are prepared to subsidise low attendance.
On the up side, you're being charged a lot less than we were for some of
our rooms.  £9 per hour was what the City Council charged for any
conference room, and we'd have to decide whether we thought we'd want
two or three hours long beforehand.  Unsustainable.  £120 a year is an
inexpensive offer.
-- 
Brian Ronald (Brianetta)            http://www.ppcis.org/
_________________________________________________________
I didn't want to hurt you, but you're pretty when you cry
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/durham/attachments/20070904/e11ab1b8/attachment.pgp