On Thu, 11 Oct 2001, Mark Roberts wrote:
<lots of things snipped for readability>
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?
I think the alug has around 140 subscribed but I am not a list manager so cannot be sure. We generally get around 20 - 30 people at a meeting, and on the weekly irc meetings we get up to 30 on a good night although the other night I don't think we got above ten. We don't really have any technical sessions though at our meetings, just more of a play around and a look at what other people are up to.
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 :-)
Yup sounds like the Alug :-) I have tried to do a bit of enthusiasm generation over the past week as our next meeting was looking like a bit of a non-event though.
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.
Well that is why I am trying to get some camlug people onto the alug list and vice versa. The other reason for trying to get some Cam people to Red Lodge is that maybe we could arrange a future Alug/Camlug joint meeting in Cambridge. We do an informal weekly irc meeting at Alug as we cover such a large geographic area which also work quite well.
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?
We show up on lug.org.uk and in the various mags, we announce our meetings on uk.local.east-anglia and uk.comp.os.linux and I have announced at least one on cam.misc in the past. I think we have benefitted from word of mouth and we try to make sure the mailing list is active and the irc meetings are active if the physical meets are not to show we still exist.
Adam