[HLUG] Internation FOSS day

[Matthew Macdonald-Wallace]

Quoting Julian Robbins <joolsr at fastmail.fm>:

> Peter Linnell wrote:
>> Dear All,
>> Following on from the August meeting discussion about Free SW day I have
>> now had a response from the council about space in High town; and there
>> isnt any that day as its rammed with some craft fair. I will refrain
>> from comments about Hereford being stuck in the past, though terrible is
>> the temptation !
>> So even if space was available there would be costs to be paid; I was
>> ready to fork out for some power, but not ground rent!. On the
>> application form there was no tick box for fundless group with no formal
>> constitution wanting to give things away. Registered charities pay no fee.
>> Then there is the mandatory risk assessment form including their version
>> of hazard scale, frequency and severity calculations....
>> The realkiller is the requirement for UPFRONT PROOF of £5M public
>> liability insurance.
>>
> Hi Pete
>
> I had thought it might be tricky for us. Still its a bit surprising the
> length's you have to go to to have a pitch there ...

Can I make a suggestion? Forget about FSD2008 and start planning _now_  
for FSD 2009.

If we can get local businesses that use FLOSS onboard (there must be  
some of them, I work for one and I'm guessing a few of the rest of you  
do too!) for sponsorship, rope in the colleges (RFoD/Hereford/etc) to  
provide us with lecture-space/show-space and make an Expo of it, then  
we could have a fantastic event.

If we then team up with other "local" (Shropshire/SouthWales/Bristol)  
LUGs, we could galvanise this part of the country and throw a huge  
celebration of FLOSS in an accessible, clean, professional venue  
(Although I don't know the venue previously mentioned by you all - it  
may be all of these!) that looks professional.

If people do want to do things this weekend (and I'm out of the county  
so unfortunately I can't help) I'd suggest that someone burns a load  
of copies of the following:

    * The OpenCD
    * Ubuntu

and hands them out with some of the fliers from either the Ubuntu-UK  
wiki or the FSD wiki along with details of the LUG - this should be an  
awareness exercise for both FLOSS _and_ Herefordshire LUG, so let's  
use it to boost the membership!

Best of luck to all who go out this weekend,

Kind regards,

Matt.

-- 
Matthew Macdonald-Wallace
matthew at truthisfreedom.org.uk
http://www.truthisfreedom.org.uk/