[Wiltshire] Meeting places

[Robert]

On Tue, June 10, 2008 1:49 pm, David Fletcher wrote:
>
> OK I'll have one as well:-
>
> As I said a couple of weeks ago, if folks want to organise extra
> meetings, then somebody needs to be there at the start time, every time.
>
> Last night when I arrived at around 21:00, there was already two new
> people waiting to talk to somebody. Nobody else arrived until, what
> was it? 21:30? If I'd not been able to attend last night, the new
> ones would have probably given it up as a bad job and gone home.
>
> So, as well as the meeting venues, I think we should have at least a
> couple of designated representatives who live locally to each venue
> and can be relied upon to turn up on time. I don't mind in the least
> doing this - I'm usually the first to arrive anyway - but there needs
> to be one or two more so that there's always somebody there when, for
> instance, I'm away on holiday. Maybe it would also be a good idea to
> have an email address listed against each venue, for contacting the
> specific representatives for that venue without joining the list. I
> could organise this, but if the members think it's a good idea, I'd
> like to see some sort of commitment before going to the trouble of
> setting it up.
>
> Now that Linux is starting to get into the shops, in the form of the
> Asus EEE for starters, and therefore exposed to the general public
> who mostly have never heard of it, I really think that we as a group
> ought to be getting our act together.

That sounds like a fairly good idea to me - a representative with a
penguin(!?) and maybe some mug shots on the website of representatives who
will be at meetings so new attendees can recognise the group when they
arrive (or do you/we have a big banner or something??)

I must admit, although I've been on the mailing list for a few years now,
I've never been to any of the LUG meetings.  Partly because I don't like
hanging around in pubs on my own waiting for people I've never met / seen
/ don't know who they or even if anyone will turn up.

And partly because 9pm is a bit of a late start when it's work the next day.

I know there there is the other side of the argument that people want to
have time to get home / have tea / etc and I understand that as well.  But
if meetings don't start until 9:30 in reality then thats just too late for
me.  If they started a little earlier like 8 / 8:30 then I might be
tempted to start coming along...

Robert.