[GLLUG] GLLUG still alive?

[Phil Weir]

>
>
> I have been checking out London (and surrounding areas) lug's but all
>> of them seem dead, gllug seems to be the most lively at a few emails
>> this year :P
>
>
> If you're looking for companionship or friendly banter, I'd recommend
> organising something, announcing where you will be and when. People nearby
> or willing will turn up, usually, in small numbers.
>

Second this - we have kept the Belfast LUG ticking over basically by
structural variety and scheduling consistency. Admittedly, I've been flat
out with work over the last twelve months so organisation has been limited
(before another Belfast list-lurker calls me out on a recent series of last
minute "light touch" socials :D) -- however, there is guaranteed to be a
meet every month (over 100 consecutively now), either online or in person
(at least one of each per quarter), and we do not fix a day, so we can
dodge anything that looks more popular. That way, people can swing by if
they're free - sometimes it's early evening, sometimes later, so it works
for different timezones/lifestyles in different months. It's organised via
Meetup & Slack which, for all their flaws, pick up new drop-ins on a
semi-regular basis. It's rarely in the same place twice. We have also
broadened to Linux & Libre, as (personally) the set union feels like it
works better here than being exclusive.

Logistically, the catering is very rarely beer/pizza, so it's known locally
that if you go there'll be dinner and a variety that other meetups/UGs
might not embrace (e.g. bao, Bánh mì, Jamaican catering, burritos, sushi &
sashimi, etc. and always veggie/vegan options). We try to rotate (usu.)
between BLUG General (general interest), BLUG Social (café, restaurant or
pub) and BLUG Technical (all welcome but technical experience assumed) each
quarter. This concept actually came from when I was a member of DunLUG in
NZ (shout out). Our median turnout is 4-8 (with around 10-15 regulars who
drop in and out), but occasionally we'll have 40+ for specific events where
we put a bunch of effort in.

The technical events are usually on a particularly topical theme, and
sometimes are joint with another meetup -  e.g. technical talks on free
software in a certain language ecosystem, etc. Some of the recurring
General Interest event themes that have been popular and don't take much
prep (confession, some of these are pretty old):

 - balloon debate: coding languages and improvements to the CS degree
syllabus were two
 - vertical descent: a series of short talks (10min) as intros to each part
of a technology stack (for online journalism, we did one starting with data
journalists, then JS & accessibility, MVC frameworks, recent kernel
development and finishing with an intro to semiconductor physics)
 - mascot hunt: family day out to the zoo where we have booklets to match
animals to projects (https://github.com/flaxandteal/blug-zoo-list)
 - BLUG Spat: a competitive FLOSS bugsplat with silly prizes (
https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/BLUG-SPAT--CUxhaDYTWQtxyMp3r1Fx2yGVAQ-h84gcCVqYOym9UMekbhEB
)
 - Post-FOSDEM BYOT: 5min presentations of things that you found
interesting at FOSDEM. We also do a BLUG-in-Brussels dinner each year,
which occasionally picks up some confused Belgians :D
 - Creative Commons cinema night
 - ancient hardware: pre-millenium hardware with alternative operating
systems and platforms (kudos to Farset Labs, excellent hackerspace in
Belfast)
 - BelFOSS (although our last was pre-COVID): joint event between BLUG and
QUB (uni) bringing together industry, academia and students (credit to
Jonny McC as the real instigator and driving force there)

Of course, that does mean we have leaned pretty hard into the free & open
source concept, not exclusively Linux or operating systems, which is
arguably cheating. On the flipside, it has been difficult to keep that
consistency with other personal/work commitments, and I am very conscious
that when we lose it, it would be hard to get back, so I had better get
going on a date for this month :D

In any case, if someone wants to try some of those tactics and get thoughts
on what has/hasn't worked (and we've definitely a long way to go on
improvements), I'm happy to follow up.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/gllug/attachments/20240813/4c707a58/attachment.htm>