[Fife Linux Users Group] Fife Lug Meetings

[Barrie Dempster]

On Sun, 2005-11-06 at 21:13 +0000, Jim McLaren wrote:
> 
> Meeting Format/Organisation: Personally speaking I much prefer a structured 
> type of meeting, not necessarily down to the level of an agenda and minutes, 
> but certainly some idea of what it is going to be about. I do not count 
> myself as a geek (not enough grey matter I'm afraid), and although I like 
> beer and durritos, I would not be a member for long if that is all that there 
> was :-)) I would suggest that there needs to be two types of meeting. The 
> first is informal, in a pub, someone's house or wherever. The second type 
> should be more organised in an appropriate venue where there is a topic or 
> topics to be discussed on the night. There is no reason why an informal 
> evening could not then follow on from it. 

indeed yep, structured meetings need some sort of content, which is what
EdLUG do and what I propose we do, unless someone has content then we
all just meet in the pub. This works well, when there is something going
on we can organise it, otherwise just relax.

> It would also be good to have someone to contact with suggestions for 
> meetings, comments and stuff that you might not necessarily want to post to 
> the mailing list.

Don't really see what could go to a single point of contact that
couldn't be discussed openly, do you have an example ?

> Group Structure: I've been a member for quite a few months now, and I still 
> don't really know who runs it.

That's because no one does, chase founded the LUG but he's willing to
take input from anyone with good ideas. This is good as it means as long
as an idea is good it gets backing from people interested it, if no ones
interested in it then no one cares so it won;t happen.

> Mostly my fault again for not getting to 
> meetings, but it would be better (IMO) to have on the website a contacts 
> section that stated who was meetings organiser, who was president (if there 
> is one) and so on. 

Yeh and we could have a constitution and have edlug(social)
edlug(political) edlug(people who like chinese food) - I'm not joking
this is how they had to do it in order to stop all the bickering. This
is where EdLUG went downhill, there is no need for this sort of
structure in a small group of friends, maybe when it gets a bit bigger,
but for now the more relaxed and friendly the better. Personally I don't
think we need hierarchies to organise what is supposed to be a social
event. However when something more formal occurs such as a presentation
then the presenter will be in charge and they can ask for volunteers on
the list to help out.

I believe leaders are needed for specific events, but the norm should be
guys with similar interests in the same room. Trust me LUGs are a lot
more fun like that.

> Two immediate benefits spring to mind. The first is that 
> if a lurker goes to the website they can see who to get in touch with if they 
> need more information, and secondly it looks a bit more organised which may 
> encourage people to come along.

That's easily solved by picking a venue that's easy to locate and having
a specific time and date. No more information is needed beyond that. A
page with some guidelines on what to do if you want to speak would be
good - other than that nothing else is necessary.

All of this is best discussed actually at a meeting. why don't we, the
active guys on the list, get together for a meal and discuss what we'd
like to see happen and what we like/dislike about the LUG just now. That
will resolve all of this much more quickly.

Email is too distant for something which is about bringing people closer
together.

The red fort in Glenrothes does a fantastic Indian buffet for about a
fiver, how about we meet there for a discussion in the nest couple of
weeks sometime ?


-- 
With Regards..
Barrie Dempster (zeedo) - Fortiter et Strenue

"He who hingeth aboot, geteth hee-haw" Victor - Still Game

blog:  http://reboot-robot.net
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