[Lincs] Worries About The Future Of The Group... [Was: IRC Meetings & Digital Projector]

Wed Aug 18 10:50:34 BST 2004

I have to agree with Dave's comments wholeheartedly, these are still
early days and if you think about the positives the LUG has come a fair
way... website, a RL meeting, mailing list etc.. a lot has been achieved
in a short time. 

Unfortunately though, things do not happen overnight but at present we
have a core or 10-15 regular posters to the mailing list... speaking
from experience (having been listadmin on a mailing list for 4 years)
trust me this is good, don't be worried about the fact that the other 40
don't post. Many people prefer to lurk and all lists go through slow
periods.

I admit that the actual level of "technical" posts on the list is rather
small (adding bi-weekly columns to the website will serve a twofold
solution to this - 1. something to read and 2. serve as a starting point
for discussions on the list).

As far as the IRC meetings go I can't really comment as I don't have any
net access from home at present but I can understand that many people
have RL commitments/reasons that prevent them attending. After all some
people just don't like instant messaging.

I think Dave's comment on the attendance at the RL meeting on the 11th
is a very valid and very important one. Let faces facts a 60% turn out
for list members alone will be a very good turnout... like he says
anything else is a bonus.

But don't give up on the LUG just because of a (perceived) low turnout.
Things take time... yeah there will be disasters like Monday night
(guilty!) but there will be successes as well and that in the end is
what it's all about.       

Grahame Mulliss

-----Original Message-----
From: lincs-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk
[mailto:lincs-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Dave Pearson
Sent: 18 August 2004 09:52
To: Lincolnshire Linux User Group
Subject: Re: [Lincs] IRC Meetings & Digital Projector

* Marc Mc Guinness <marc at mcguinness.de> [2004-08-17 22:48:45 +0200]:

> i am very disappointed and discouraged by all the people who don't
give us
> any feedback.

Don't be; this sort of thing is par for the course with almost any sort
of
"club" or "society" -- especially in the early days. On top of this, and
I
partially speak from experience here (as a committee member of a
reasonably
new astronomical society), it's worth keeping in mind that not everyone
who
might have an interest in such a group or such a subject will have the
same
level of interest or evangelism as you might. And, of course, there's
the
ever present time issue.

Take the IRC meetings as a good case in point: I don't know about anyone
else but, for me, something like the IRC thing holds no interest and,
worse
still, it happens at a terribly inconvenient time. I doubt I'm alone in
having such a thing clash with stuff like getting home from work (not
really
an issue for me given that I work from home but I'm sure it'll be an
issue
for other people), spending time with offspring, getting offspring to
bed,
preparing dinner, consuming dinner, attending to other household chores,
spending time with significant other, trying to keep away from a PC
having
spent all day in front of a handful of them, etc... Spending time with a
(for me) terribly inefficient form of communication is way down on my
priority list.

But, given that, you shouldn't take it as a general value judgement on
LLUG,
you need only realise that something like a LUG has to compete with lots
of
other things to understand that the outcome of that "competition" isn't
something you should use as a source for disappointment or
discouragement.

Getting any sort of group or society going can take many months and many
meetings before things start to fall into place and before a core of
helpers
can really be built up. Anyone starting to get such a ball rolling needs
to
be prepared for this fact.

> please help us at least by placing the posters in your cars!

I think this might also end up being another source of disappointment
and
discouragement. It's worth keeping in mind that, for most people,
attending
a "computer club" was something you did in the 1980s and, since then,
it's
something that's done at about the same level as train spotting, plane
spotting and other hobbies that tend to have bad PR. I'd be astonished
if
posters in cars and other "normal" places made any significant different
to
attendance. You need to be prepared for it not making a difference and
to
not be disappointed or discouraged by this.

I was around for the creation of the Hampshire LUG back in the late
1990s
and it was small to start and grew reasonably well. To the best of my
knowledge there was no general advertising campaign to speak of, the LUG
made use of the best channels possible: the places where people who
might be
interested hung out. This included GNU/Linux user groups, mailing lists,
computer magazines, that sort of thing.

Posting information to the right locations and word-of-mouth to other
people
who might be interested will probably result in a better response than
just
general advertising. Anything else is a bonus.

Enough feedback? ;>

-- 
Dave Pearson:                   |     lbdb.el - LBDB interface.
http://www.davep.org/           |  sawfish.el - Sawfish mode.
Emacs:                          |  uptimes.el - Record emacs uptimes.
http://www.davep.org/emacs/     | quickurl.el - Recall lists of URLs.

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