[Wolves] Idea for local LUGs

[Adam Sweet]

Hi everyone

I'm on a few local LUG mailing lists, namely South Birmingham,
Shropshire (as I used to work there) and Staffslug (as I now work at
Keele Science Park).

Both Staffs and Shrops have been discussing the decline in mailing list
participation and meeting attendance. LUGs originated when it was
uncommon to know another Linux users and were the main way people got
help with Linux problems when Linux problems were the norm :)

These days LUGs are being replaced by Google searches and distro
communities such as forums and loco teams and I think we ourselves have
declined in numbers, due in part to the fact that we are now largely
past the days when getting Linux working was difficult and many of us
who have been running Linux for years don't need the assistance any
more, we are are now gainfully employed and have moved on either in time
availability or geographical terms.

I started with Wolves LUG knowing nothing at all about running Linux and
almost exactly 9 years on I'm a Linux sysadmin. My first meeting was the
2000 Christmas meeting and I started posting shortly before that. Having
grown up on this list, it seems a shame to watch the local LUGs wither
in participation, though Staffs seem to have woken up a bit now and
Shrops are re-evaluating their way of doing things.

I thought it might be nice to think about visiting the other local LUG
and technical groups' meetings every so oftren and maybe have them visit
us, as many have (Brum Perl Mingers have been to use many times and
several SB LUG and Python people have been our way too). Hopefully, this
might lead to a bit more cross-pollination. It was a shame that after
the communication with Wolves uni 2 years ago, nobody came our way
(apart from Suntish I think - wave if you're still here Suntish :)).

I would be willing to drive in a car share to ones in my direction
(Shrops are in Telford, Staffs have met at Keele where I work, though
I'm not sure I'd want to drive home and back again...). I could probably
do SB too.

Perhaps we could use this end of year period to take stock and think
about what we want to do next year.

Thoughts?

Ad