[Lancaster] Setting up as a uni society.

[Martyn Welch]

On Monday 29 May 2006 21:01, Andy Smith wrote:
> I agree with Andy that perhaps a new uni society (Lancaster Uni Unix
> Users Group or somesuch) which is nothing to do with the LUG as such
> but can organise meetings at the uni which the public is invited to,
> is the way to go if possible. These would not have to be the only 
> meetings that the LUG has.

That was kinda what we were aiming for. 

The problem at the moment is that we have very few members actually turning 
up, this places quite a heavy burden on the few that do to arrange meetings 
and activities. For example:

* If we use the LaRC, someone needs to be there from 5 to pick up the key 
(which they aren't allowed to take off site!).
* If we use the back-bar at uni, it needs to be booked.
* If we need a projector, this needs to be found from somewhere (yes, there 
should be one in the LaRC, but last time it wasn't)
* Even if we just meet in the pub - this needs to be vigorously publicised 
else very few  (read - one or two) turn up. Even then, I have been the only 
person to turn up on more than one occasion.

None of these are really that difficult, but they do take at least half an 
hour to do. Every few weeks. Trust me, this begins to get tiring and should 
explain why sometimes publicised dates for meetings have been missed. 

The plan I had was to try and regularly hold one meeting in town and one at 
the uni. In order to get access to lecture theatres and alike (for 
presentations), part of the group would really have to become a society. It 
also seems like a good way to increase the number of members (we already have 
more people turn up to uni meetings than town meetings), especially ones with 
a little more time on their hands and energy to arrange stuff. 

As far as I'm concerned, we are very low risk - I guess the largest risk we 
have is choking on a drink. 

As for cost and membership access issues:

If we hold a meeting in the bar, as long as there is at least a few valid 
members of the university present, everyone else is their guest and all is 
OK.

If we hold a presentation, most people will be sitting watching - this is low 
risk and can invite guests.

Currently I feel that we have done well to be able to hold meetings free of 
charge, some lugs can't. Though this does rely on those arranging stuff to be 
quite creative at times. For example, when we held the last installfest, we 
were lucky that the head of the computing department was happy for us to hold 
it in infolab and that a few of us had (personal) printer budget to burn.

Martyn

-- 

Martyn Welch (welchm at comp.lancs.ac.uk)

PGP Key : http://ubicomp.lancs.ac.uk/~martyn/pgpkey/
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