Ray Hallsworth wrote: > I have only ever been to a meeting once (January 2009) with a > friend from work.The cool reception that met us made my fridge > temperature seem like a tropical heatwave ! Although we did manage to > talk to two people (eventually), I received the distinct impression that > we were not welcome and that the LUG wanted to become a closed club > where the members could freely do there own thing in peace from > strangers asking stupid questions.
... and Steve Tompkins-MacQueen wrote: > I did not find the welcome cold but I sit down and at first thought OK what > now. Like meny informail meeting it is a little difcalt as one douse not > know how to behave. I recognise Steve's picture, and definitely not Ray's although I am very grateful for Ray sharing it, as it's fine for me to say that he got the wrong impression but the fact that he got that impression is for us to fix. PLUG is very much leaderless and rudderless (no particular aims and no means for steering towards them anyway). This should change, it just needs someone to change it! I am very grateful to Tony for making his room available for meetings (I don't recall where we were meeting back in January but I assume it was at my company's workshop, and I can understand Tony's frustration in making the venue available and staying late for every meeting only to have one or two people show up - remember that the host doesn't get to decide to miss occasional meetings like the rest of us do). The LINX meeting room is an ideal venue to actually do the things a LUG should be doing - demonstrations, talks, etc, although we're not doing a great job of organising these things. To some extent this is a chicken and egg problem - with the LUG as it is right now I would be wary of inviting an outside speaker in to give a talk, but without doing this it'll be hard to change the dynamic of the group. Perhaps now would be a good time for those who do not attend meetings (and probably don't say much here on the list either) to say why they don't attend and what they'd like to see happen at the meetings? For my part, as someone whose attendance has dropped considerably, I'll be brutally honest and say that I've never seen PLUG as a primarily social meeting, and from a Linux perspective I don't really get much from the meetings, nor do I find myself really in a position to give much back at meetings any more. I still attend when I can but it's dropped down my priority list. I'd like a reason for it to go back up again. There are outside speakers, on subjects like using Linux for computer forensics and data recovery, for example, who do the rounds and may well be prepared to come to PLUG meeting in return for petrol money and coffee. I'd like to attend such meetings. I'm also quite happy to help newcomers with installations etc, and if anyone has a subject they'd like covered I might even be able to give a presentation on a subject (as could many others here). Speaking personally, what I am not good at is taking command of a meeting and grabbing attention, and the end result is that if I am "in charge" then the meeting falls apart into separate groups talking about different (often non-Linux) subjects, and it's hard for someone like me to drag everyone back into focus. Maybe we should have bi-monthly meetings, one social (in a pub) and one "on-topic" (at LINX or similar)? Or maybe for the time being the monthly meets should alternate between pub and LINX? Or maybe I'm the only one who would appreciate a more "Help me get more out of Linux" flavour to the meetings, rather than "We all use Linux, lets see what else we have in common"? Specifically to Ray: Thanks for sharing your views and as the likely host of the meeting you attended, I sincerely apologise for the way you felt at the meeting you attended. I'd like to ask you to help us understand what you would like from a meeting and then attend again to see if we can deliver? To PLUG generally: Most people who felt like Ray did would have left the mailing list and wouldn't have voiced their views. The fact that he's stuck with Linux, stuck with the list, and has shared his comments, probably means he's very much someone we need on board! -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG _______________________________________________ Peterboro mailing list Peterboro@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/peterboro
