[Scottish] The Future of the LUG

[Graeme Thomson]

re: the irc applet, i've had problems getting it to work reliably on my 
apple machines. it seems to quite hapily lock up bot safari 1.1 and 
internet explorer 5.2 for mac.

i was considering some other ways of getting irc access over the web, 
such as CGI scripts, but i think they are resource hungry.  and my irc 
tutorial will be mentioning it as a last resort for if you cant get 
conencted for some reason, to see if anyone can help you in "real time" 
(quotes cos sometime you can wait a while for anyone to be awake :D )

regards

G
On 10 Dec 2003, at 13:50, Ben Thorp wrote:

>
>
>
>
>> I dont think we should rename the LUG, just accept that we are the 
>> defacto
>
>> Glasgow LUG and offer as much as possible via the website and IRC to 
>> our
>> members who are unfortunate enough to live outwith the dear green 
>> place.
> Just
>> cos they cant come every month for a meeting or a pint, they arent any
> less
>> important.
>> We need to keep the SLUG name and all that goes with it (even the
> confusion)
>> and we should encourage and assist our "provincial" members to start 
>> up
> their
>> own LUGs. I believe a succesful experiment has been carried out in 
>> that
>> quaint little village in the east with the castle.
>
> LoL. Agreed. Although perhaps we ought to get our LUG whipped into 
> shape
> first ;o)
>
>> I think we need to restart the meetings in Strathclyde Uni (if that is
> cool
>> wih Kenny). We need (IMHO) to take up Colin's offer to share his
> considerable
>> knowledge with us. There may be a case for some talks aimed 
>> specifically
> at
>> newbies.
>
> Agreed. We have had a number of offers for talks/slots and I think we
> should take them all up. Also, I still think we need to have some 
> 'other'
> ideas, as arranging talks is a little time consuming, and it would be 
> good
> to have some other non-talk based ideas, like in my original list.
>
>> Im concerned that we _may_ have put off some folks who turned up
>> once or twice and were put off by the "uber-geekiness" of it all. I 
>> have
> no
>> evidence for this, just a hunch we may have lost some folk that way.
>> OTOH we are a bunch of geeks so thats kinda hard to avoid. Possibly 
>> it may
>
>> evolve into 2 talks per month, one for beginners and one more 
>> advanced.
>
> This sounds like a good idea, although arranging 2 talks a month seems 
> like
> even harder work! However, Tony has offered to do a beginners slot, 
> and I
> would be happy to do some beginners stuff, now that I am fairly sure 
> that
> I'm not quite a beginner any more myself.
>
> My early memories of coming to the LUG was exactly what you described -
> overawed by the wealth of extremely complex knowledge. However, the 
> talks
> that I remember are not necessarily the basic ones, but more the ones 
> that
> were presented with everyone in mind; assuming 0 knowledge. Having said
> that, it didn't put me off totally - a group of geeks meeting will 
> always
> have an attraction for other geeks, but it's the non-geeky users we 
> need to
> watch out for.
>
>> As the list admin (with assistance from Kyle) I/we need to 
>> investigate why
>
>> some folk are getting funny reply-to addresses. The only ongoing prob 
>> I
> was
>> aware of was the antiroot's DNS is screwed up regularly generates 
>> bounces.
>
>> But I keep thinking he'll sort it out in a day or two so I dont do
>> anything :-)
>
> If it helps, the bad messages seem to be sent by
> scottish-bounce at mailman.lug.org.uk and when you hit reply, it goes 
> back to
> the sender, not the list.
>
>> Possibly we do need a formal structure. I have resisted this in the 
>> past
> due
>> to previous experiences of commitees in the voluntary sector that 
>> turned
> into
>> ego-trips, disputes over handling of finances and slagging matches 
>> and I'd
>
>> hate us to go the same way. But thats probably the kind of negative
> attitude
>> that ensures nothing ever gets done. So maybe I am moving closer to 
>> the
> fence
>> on this one.
>
> I don't think we need a very formal structure to be able to do this. 
> But
> some kind of structure is needed to make sure things get organised.
>
> I would suggest that we get maybe 6-12 people who are reasonably 
> committed
> to the LUG, and to being at the meetings, and get them each to take 
> charge
> of 1 month a year, and they have to arrange some activity for that 
> night -
> be it a talk, a demo, a quiz, or anything like that. I think that 
> there are
> plenty of people who would offer to take charge of a month.
>
>> Our website is a  greatly underused resource and the offer to write 
>> some
> java
>> applets to help folk onto IRC should be grabbed with both hands.
>
> Agreed - I think there is still an IRC applet on the website, actually.
>
>> It would be nice if we could get a meeting with the Green party to see
> what we
>> can do to assist Robin Harper. I dont always agree with all of what 
>> the
> Green
>> Party say but thats politics, working with those whom you can agree 
>> with
> on
>> some points to advance common interests. But I'll probably drive to 
>> that
>> meeting :-) ( preferably along the new bit of the M74)
>
> Perhaps we could get the key person to come to the LUG and talk about 
> why
> they want to move to Linux, what they see as the Pros, and Cons, what 
> their
> current barriers to moving are, and then see if we can offer 
> assistance in
> any way?
>
>
> Ben Thorp
>
>
>
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