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Re: room



I couldn't agree with Jim Burke more.  Even piror to moving to the Library
very little productive was happen at the meetings.  This group was
origionally start by folks who wanted to learn more about Linux: how it
works, what can be done with it, etc.  Without some kind of organization and
leadership you end up with a group like that which Jim descibes.  Now I
don't care if we meet in Al's Garage as long as we're doing something other
than sitting around an BSing.  Last month Tighe made a galant effort to give
a presentation on using TPCDUMP.  Unfortunately, we had 9 or 10 folks
gathered around a dinky laptop trying to see and hear what he was doing.
Very quickly folks lost interest and meeting drifted into a BS session.

There are lots of folks who have quit coming to the meeting for the very
reasons Jim mentions, and as demonstrated late month. Maybe we have should
two meetings: one for people who like the unstructured gatherings where the
conversation is free flowing, moving amoung topics. And one where folks meet
with a defined agenda and purpose.  Don't misunderstand, I'm not advocating
two separate user groups.  One group, two meetings.  You can attend one
meeting or the other, or both!  Just some thoughts to keep the pot stirred
up.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-silug-discuss@silug.org
[mailto:owner-silug-discuss@silug.org]On Behalf Of James L. Burke
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2001 10:48 AM
To: silug-discuss@silug.org
Subject: Re: room


I haven't attended a meeting in some time and honestly I haven't planned on
attending any upcoming meetings.  Mostly this has to do with my schedule
seperate and apart from SILUG, but I simply can't justify going to a meeting
that may or may not happen, or the speaker may or may not show up, or the
speaker may or may not be prepared, or ...

Since I'm not planning on attending, I guess I don't care where the meeting
is held.  On the other hand, if I do decide to go to a meeting, I'm not
likely to be locked out of the O'Fallon library.

Our office owns a projector that could be used for meetings, but if I'm not
in attendance, I would need to entrust this projector to one individual who
would be responsible for its care.  Steve ... don't go buy one when you can
borrow ours ...

Lastly, if we want better attendance at meetings I would guess we need
better
organization ... speakers should publish an outline of what they intend to
cover a few days prior to the meeting.  Everyone is busy and it is
frustrating to waste time.  On the other hand we could chuck the whole idea
of one person presenting a formal topic and go for a much more relaxed
social
meeting ... in which case I'd rather see us meet at a restaurant and have
fun
talking with each other (I guess a bar wont work 'cause Nate couldn't join
us).

In the end I think a decision should be made ... do we want the meetings to
be a formal/instructional setting or a casual/social setting.  We could do
both ... a few formal topics each year that are well prepared and planned
and
the remainder of the meetings more social/community interest.

On the other hand, I could just shut up and get back to work ... trying to
write a perl dbi/cgi script to access a MySQL database ... hmmm.

jburke.

On Friday 30 November 2001 09:38, you wrote:
> This is a problem and a solution that I don't find acceptable. At nearly
> 1/2 of the meetings that were held at SRA, we couldn't get into the room.
> It was either late, or not at all. While the room at SRA is a lot better,
> it is too small (despite the recent low attendance) and entry to the room
> is limited to only one or two individuals. This is not an acceptable
> solution.
>
> We have been looking for a projector, which solves the issue at the
> library. I guess even though Steven's been unemployed, we'll have to
> invest the $2k+ in a projector anyhow.
>
> I'm further disturbed that a major decision, such as the meeting place,
> was made a month ago, and never announced. Just last night I told a new
> person buying a Linux Journal from Borders that we were meeting next week
> at the library.
>
> If a decision was made a month ago, changes should have been made to the
> website. Discussions should have been made on the list with the REST of
> the members.
>
> You can't change the meeting time and location on the fly without telling
> anyone. You can't just come back into town and change everything. I'm
> sorry that we were leaving for California and couldn't make the whole
> meeting.
>
> Larry, have you decided to take the Fairview Heights group over again? (as
> you had to when your previous group leader left)
>
> -Kara
>
> On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, L J White wrote:
> > At the last meeting the group decided that because our numbers have
> > dwindled down to a rather small group, and because not everyone was able
> > to see what Tiegh was doing during his presentation that we move back to
> > the SRA conference room.  The time is still the same. 7:00pm on the
> > 2nd(?) tuesday of the month. Or is it the 3rd tuesday of the month?
> > Someone please remind me.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-silug-discuss@silug.org
> > [mailto:owner-silug-discuss@silug.org]On Behalf Of Steven Pritchard
> > Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 11:19 PM
> > To: silug-discuss@silug.org
> > Subject: room
> >
> >
> > So do we have a room next year?  (Steve?  Nate?  Anyone else who lives
> > in O'Fallon and has a library card?  :-)
> >
> > Steve
> > --
> > steve@silug.org           | Southern Illinois Linux Users Group
> > (618)398-7360             | See web site for meeting details.
> > Steven Pritchard          | http://www.silug.org/
> > -
> > To unsubscribe, send email to majordomo@silug.org with
> > "unsubscribe silug-discuss" in the body.
> >
> > -
> > To unsubscribe, send email to majordomo@silug.org with
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