[Wiltshire] Meeting place -what happens?

[Adrian]

Hi all,

I too have found the prospect of travel to Swindon each time daunting,
and I have only had one response from anyone in the Devizes area and
that was someone 20 minutes drive away.

I have to agree that a 9pm start in a pub begs the question, what
happens at a Wilts LUG meeting? I can appreciate that there is chat, and
its a social, but I take it you don´t take your laptops, so the benefits
to the general visitor would be minimal unless they had specific
questions, which the mailing list or IRC could suffice.

I think there are probably several factors to why previous sessions have
been in the pub, but if the LUG is to move forward, especially if Linux
is to be taken up by the general public (shudders) then daytime venues,
wireless access, teaching/discussion topics, location issues should all
be considered.

Greater publicity should also be considered as to the value of being a
member of the LUG. What can a user get from this lug, that they cannot
get from distro forums and larger IRC groups? (I have a few answers!)

The recent Ubuntu Demo Day showed that there is interest from the public
to explore new OS systems, and a local group could do so much to support
and develop uptake. There were many who would not be allowed in the pub,
as well as the previously mentioned concerns. The Demo day gave a taster
of what could be. If somewhere was willing to offer Internet access and
some form of LTSP could be set up, then much more could be gained from
the events. I see videos online of say Southampton´s LUG giving teaching
sessions and think how they could be done in Wiltshire. I have a level
of understanding and I am happy to teach the basic usage in Linux at a
seminar, but there is much I could learn from the wealth of knowledge
that is already within the Wilts LUG. Not that you need become teachers.
Often the insight into a field is enough to get a user enthused and
enabled.

This is not to say that social events in a pub should be banned. But
Linux Users are no longer just blokes who prefer the command line. I
personally have not been in a pub for the last year as I never get the
opportunity and values changed since my student days. I feel out of
place when in one.

Hope this is of interest,

Adrian

On Tue, 2008-04-29 at 00:30 -0700, Simon Iremonger wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Apr 2008, Ciemon Dunville wrote:
> > On 28/04/2008, David Fletcher <dave at thefletchers.net> wrote:
> >> When I suggested a couple of years back that we move to O'Neill's,
> 
> > Dave, I personally have issues with pubs, and the current meet. Having
> > it at 9pm in a pub excludes many potential participants.
> > It makes no allowance for those that don't like pubs, those that don't
> > want to be in Swindon so late at night, those that must use public
> > transport, those that are young and can't legally enter pubs. As Pete
> > says, it's also a long way for a lot of us to travel.
> Yes... its' a Swindon meet... At the moment!
> 
> There is a combination of reasons taht mean its *currently* very
>    convinient for me, because of other meetings/persons...
> 
> I definitely wouldn't want it to be any earlier on *that day*
>    or or a Thursday at all ;-).
> 
> > Bearing in mind the 30 or so punters that went to the demo day, it
> > seems there is a fair amount of interest in the area, and having a
> > meeting that's more accessible would be a good idea.
> > I wonder if there are any other thoughts on this?
> 
> Collect ideas, and possible locations?
> What sort of groups of people do you think are
>    missing?  Where are they?  Why would they be
>    interested?
> 
> > Ciemon
> --Simon
> 
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