Hi,
On Wednesday 10 Oct 2001 10:42 pm, Adam Bower wrote:
Well, when I was living in Cam an install fest was organised and promoted as being at CB2, I replied to the post on cam.misc asking exactly where CB2 was as I didn't know what or where CB2 was and never got a reply :-( I
I have only been around Cambridge LUG since the beginning of this year, but I have heard about the Installfest that took place at CB2 some time ago. CB2 is a cafe-bar just off East Road (near the Grafton Centre), BTW. I think marketting and communications are one of the hardest parts of Linux advocacy, as they are not often in the core skillset of the sort of people that are good at using and configuring Linux system. I would guess your message got missed in the chaos of organising the event.
also think I subscribed to the mailing list at the same and never got any mail so I figured that maybe the camlug didn't exist or something.
Our mailing list is sometimes very quiet. Traffic depends on the input of everyone on the list. Some topics generate quite a bit of debate, whilst others go unanswered. We do have a lot of subscribers (well over a hundred), so perhaps Cambridge people are just a quiet bunch?
I think the other difference that I can tell is that the camlug meet on a regular basis but don't bring computers etc. whereas the alug meet (physically) less often but usually hire a hall and bring computers etc. so you have to make more of an effort but less often but when you do make the effort it is usually going to be worth it as you know there are going to be other people there to give advice and support etc. and fix your broken computer which happens quite alot.
This is something we often discuss doing, but there doesn't seem to be that much enthusiasm for it. Perhaps because of the overwhelmingly technical and scientific nature of Cambridge industry, most of the people who currently come along to our meetings work with computers all day, and are very cabable of self-support, so they don't really have a great interest for overly technical sessions. Take a look at our members gallery page to see a small cross section of our membership and what they do - http://www.cam-lug.org.uk/members/gallery.shtml . Still, I wonder if a (silent) section of the membership would jump at the chance?
Our mailing list sees more questions about the more obscure switches for gcc when cross-compiling to the StrongARM architecture, or what Linux-based groupware is considered ready for production use than 'help, my computer is fscked!'. If there are people on the list who have the latter kind of questions, please do ask! The list is only what people make of it, as is the group in general. We have no formal group organisation, and any action or event that happens is entirely down to the enthusiasm and effort of anyone that wants to do whatever. If you have an idea or need help, don't be shy :-)
All the same, we find its very good to chat Linux over a good cup of coffee or whatever, and find out what other people are doing with Linux. The meetings we do have work well and are usually enjoyable for all that come along. Other types of meeting would indeed be interesting too though.
One other thing which I don't know why is that not many people on the alug list knew that the camlug even existed but I think quite a few have now signed up to the camlug mailing list.
We don't do enough promotion, really. For a time our entries in the various LUG registers were wrong (if anyone knows of one where it still is wrong, please let me know). How do you promote the ALUG? How do people find you?
Best regards, Mark.