[Wylug-discuss] Future meetings.........

[Dave Fisher]

On Tue, Sep 13, 2005 at 10:20:03AM +0100, Jim Jackson wrote:
<snip>
> We have had a long standing offer of a talk for October from a US outfit 
> Coraid Inc.
<snip>
> I'm minded to cancel. Any comments?
> 
> Dave Fisher has said he's happy to take over as WYLUG organiser.
> I'll leave Dave to say more. But would urge people to offer assistance.

Hi all,

I've got some heavy work commitments over the nexty 3 weeks, but I've
re-arranged my schedule to give plenty of time to WYLUG over subsequent
months.

I don't yet have any fixed programme, but I'd like to organise meetings
along something like the following lines:

  1. I'd like to generate a significant surplus of talk ideas and offers
     ... so that we don't have to just plump for something to fill a gap
     in the schedule.

     So please, please, please start contributing as many topic and
     speaker ideas as you can think of.  
     
     For the time being, don't worry about whether your idea might be
     popular or not, too simple or difficult, or even whether you know
     someone who can deliver it.
     
     Just put the idea forward.

  2. I'd like most most meetings to have at least 2 talks: one
     basic/generic talk and one more advanced/esoteric.  
     
     Along the line of previous comments in this thread.

  3. I'd like try out 'micro-sessions' e.g. 5-10 minute slots where
     individuals can speak informally on small stuff they've heard
     about, tried out, found out, or want to find out about.

     The idea being that no special preparation, presentation skills or
     detailed subject knowledge should be required, i.e. no one should
     feel nervous, or embarrassed about contributing.
     
     Indeed, these needn't even be talks at all.  Just one good question
     along the lines of: "how could I do X" might be sufficient to
     stimulate discussion and useful contributions.

  4. I'd like to to improve the integration between meetings, the
     mailing lists and the website.  
     
     In particular, I'd like to see if we can collate and summarise the
     really useful information that people contribute to mailing list
     discussions, so that the benefits are less dissipated.

     Ideally, I'd like to trawl back through recent discussions on
     popular topics and summarise there findings on a wiki, i.e. so that
     members can update and improve them as time goes by.

   5. I'd like us to experiment with non-talk formats, e.g. practical
      workshops and demos, etc.  Some might well fit into 5-10 minute
      micro-sessions, whereas others might replace one or both talks.
      
      Obviously, the main problem with such practical stuff is that it
      may require more preparation and depend on specific kit or
      facilities.

   6. Lastly, I'd like to repeat (in an improved and updated form), the
      very successful series of newbie tutorials that we ran a few years
      ago. The plan would be to run them from Jan 2006, filling some
      (though not all) of the basic talk slots.


All constructive comments welcome ... especially talk suggestions.

Dave