[Liverpool] A history of Liverpool Linux User Group

[Bob Ham]

As promised, below is a history of LivLUG.  I've CC'd the lugmaster list
as I said many moons ago that I would post it to that list as well.
I've also uploaded it to the LivLUG wiki here:

  http://liv.lug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=history





This is a history of Liverpool Linux User Group, compiled by Bob Ham
in September, 2012.


The first known Linux-related group in Liverpool was the Liverpool
Open Source Group.  This group was closely affiliated with the
University of Liverpool and existed from 1997 until around
2000/2001.  The group was started by Dr Simon Hood of the university,
along with another man named Simon.  It stemmed from an internal
university mailing list.  The group was listed on lug.org.uk.  The
first meeting was held at the Everyman bar and bistro and consisted of
a few interested people meeting for a chat about Linux, open source,
etc.  Few meetings were held.  The group was mostly based around the
mailing list.  As people left, it died.  It had fizzled out by 2000.

The Liverpool Linux User Group proper was started by David Watson in
2004.  David stated in the first post to the liverpool at lug.org.uk
mailing list that he had wanted to join the LUG for a few years and in
the end decided that if he wanted to join, he would have to restart
it.

The inaugural meeting was held on the 25th of January, 2005 in India
Buildings at the offices of Blue Fountain, a local company
specialising in open source.  Paul Johnson and Aidan McGuire were
largely responsible for Blue Fountain's support and they acted as
alternating hosts.  From then on, meetings were held roughly
bi-monthly at Blue Fountain's offices.  After a time, additional
pub-based meetings were held in the intervening months.

By 2007, David Watson had had a baby and could not devote the time and
energy to LUG business that he once had.  Meetings languished and the
last meeting in the first era of Liverpool LUG was held on the 20th of
March.

Sporadic emails continued to appear on the LUG mailing list and in
2008, Liverpool hosted a music technology conference called 'Open
Source City' as part of its Capital of Culture efforts.  At this
conference, a number of people spoke to each other about Liverpool
LUG.  One of the outcomes was Heather Corcoran posting on the LUG
mailing list and presenting FACT as a possible venue for LUG
meetings.  Andrew Williams proposed a meeting date of the 2nd of July
and this was agreed and advertised using upcoming.yahoo.com.

Meetings continued at FACT for a number of months but it was agreed
that the venue was not the best for a LUG and a new home should be
sought.  Initial efforts by Andrew Williams, who by then had been
designated the LUG's leader, yielded a room upstairs in Mello Mello
that the LUG would have had responsibility for cleaning and
maintaining.  However, this arrangement fell through.

Andrew managed to arrange a deal with the Liverpool Social Centre
whereby the LUG would be able to use the Social Centre space for
meetings in return for acting as support for their IT systems.  The
first meeting was held at the Social Centre on the 4th of February,
2009 and has since become the regular home of the LUG.  After trying a
few different venues, the post-talk drinking establishment settled on
The Welkin pub.

By the end of 2010, Andrew had taken on responsibility for
administration of the servers belonging to a large EVE Online guild.
Once again, meeting announcements languished.  Andrew's last
announcement was on the 1st of September, 2010.  This represents the
end of the second era of Liverpool LUG.

For a number of months following, meetings still occurred but they
resulted from discussion on the mailing list between LUG
regulars.  Eventually, on the 2nd of February, 2011, a pub-only meeting
was scrabbled together at which only three regulars appeared.  This
caused discussion of the state of the LUG amongst those present.  Bob
Ham took the initiative and began making meeting announcements,
starting with the meeting of the 2nd of March, 2012.

On the 6th of July, an administrative meeting was held at which a
number of LUG matters were discussed and decided upon.  Responsibility
for announcements was to alternate between Bob Ham and Dan Lynch in
order to avoid a situation where meeting announcements ceased due to
the inactivity of one person.  The idea of a LUG "leader" was rejected
in favour of a group working through consensus.  It was also agreed
that the LUG website should not be hosted by any particular member of
the LUG, again to avoid relying on a single person's presence.

One of the major changes that was also agreed was the addition of a
Saturday meeting in between the existing monthly Wednesday
meetings.  On Saturday the 30th of July, 2011, a working group met to
locate a suitable venue for Saturday meetings.  This research task was
labelled a "LUG Crawl".  Following from this, Saturday meetings
occurred monthly at a number of different venues, eventually mirroring
the choice of Wednesday meetings' post-talk pub which had itself been
through a variety of venues following frustrations with management at
The Welkin.  Since April, 2012, both Wednesday and Saturday drinking
has occurred at The Shipping Forecast.

On 18th of August 2012, the LUG held an official Saturday meeting
around its stall at OggCamp 2012.  At this meeting, Bob announced that
he would be stepping down as a volunteer for the LUG and no longer
attending meetings.  This was followed by an email to the mailing list
in which Bob stated his reasoning: he was stepping down in protest
against the LUG's disregard for issues of software freedom.  In the
humble opinion of the author, this represents the end of the third era
of Liverpool LUG.

Following this announcement, Neil Bothwick volunteered to take over
Bob's share of the responsibilities for announcements and also to take
over responsibility liaising with lug.org.uk.  Dan Lynch volunteered to
take over responsibility for liaising with the Liverpool Social Centre
in addition to his existing announcement responsibilities.  Another
administrative meeting was called for the 5th of September 2012.


-- 
Bob Ham <rah at settrans.net>

for (;;) { ++pancakes; }
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