[Gllug] Raising awareness of GLLUG meetings

[Simon Morris]

On 28/08/06, Justin Perreault <justinperreault at dl-jp.com> wrote:
> > If you have any ideas or comments about our low meeting attendance
> > numbers I would love to have a discussion thread about it here!
>
> I have been to two or three meetings myself and have found them to be
> educational and fun. Having said that, I am unaware of what could be
> done to ensure my, or anyone else's, attendance at future meetings.
>
> >From my POV London is a busy city with still only so much time available
> in the day. Each event, such as the flier distribution + tech meeting on
> the 16th, seems to hold something of interest to me and then life comes
> along to make it unduly difficult for me to attend. I suspect that this
> is what has kept the numbers at the stage they are at.

Yes - before I started organising them I wasn't attending that many
meetings - I understand that family and relaxing on the weekend has a
high priority.

We have held a couple of mid-week meetings this year and it might be
worth trying to do a couple more, especially seeing as there is a new
intake of students in Westminster University soon that could be lured
in.

>
> Have you started tracking who does attend? Is it possible that there is
> 40%+ attending but they are spread throughout the year?
>
> As for suggestions about what to do maybe:
>
> 1) promote the event similar to what LinuxExpo did - ask people to sign
> up due to virtual limited seating and allow anyone to show up who wants
> to. This will give an idea of how many to expect, give fodder for
> promotions (WOW 36 people attending so far, this event is gonna be our
> biggest ever), and when people sign up for things they are more likely
> to make that little bit more effort that can have them show up vs. not
> showing up.

We could do this. Everyone should be signing into the building at the
security desk so it would be possible to record attendees and keep
some sort of record.

> 2) Maybe switching to less times a year, for those who are not in
> attendance every months then they *might* double up. This would only
> give higher attendance per meeting likely not an actual increase in the
> numbers who attend.

I'm a bit reluctant to have them less frequently. One a month is a
nice regular number, but I'd like to alternate between weeknight and
weekend possibly. What do people think of this?

>
> 3) Would Sunday be an option?

Erm, yes! Only factor there is that the Tottenham Court Road shoppers
might object but apart from that it would be possible.

Thanks for the helpful feedback.

-- 
~sm
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www: http://beerandspeech.org
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