May I make a compromise suggestion?
I believe the point I was trying to make is that we can have 'separate districts' within ALUG without making them appear to anyone outside ALUG as even partially separate organisations.
Simply whenever anyone new joins ALUG, point them to their local meeting/organiser as their point of contact.
That way ALUG remains a single structure, and because of its size and reach, stands a better chance of gaining new members/getting its point across, whilst at the same time offering a local, personal touch to new members.
The only change to the website that would be needed would be a page to reflect the fact that there are local contacts in the various areas, and perhaps some way of contacting the local organiser. If we really want to get fancy, another page with a map showing the meet locations, but that would be IMHO a luxury ... perhaps just a multimap link next to the organisers' name would be sufficient.
i.e. Syd Hancock syd@toufol.com Local Contact/Meet organiser for <Link to multimap Norwich map>
TD
On Sat, 2003-07-12 at 01:44, MJ Ray wrote:
Ian Bell ian@redtommo.com wrote:
Just a tad confused now. First you say Norfolk LUG would have no advantage over ALUG, then you appear to suggest even smaller LUGs or have I missed something?
I think you've missed that I'm suggesting keeping the ALUG name and having a number of autonomous meeting groups within it and some of us doing tasks for all. That's pretty much what has been happening lately anyway, with the people around Norwich and the Mid-Suffolk ones, then some doing tasks for ALUG like the library, or Keith's wonderful name badges (online shortly, I hope). It's really just trying to recognise that and present a clearer face to the outside world.
You also missed answers to any of the questions posed, but I'll not hold that against you ;-)