[SGVLUG] Fw: [Re: Talk?]

[Emerson, Tom]

> -----Original Message----- Of David Lawyer
[...]
> Perhaps this is going too far, but what about 3 different 
> meetings going on at once: newbies, intermediate, and 
> advanced.  For the newbie meeting, you could have an install 
> fest at each meeting for people who have never used Linux 
> before.  You need to have a lot of publicity for such 
> meetings and attract people who know little about Linux.

Actually...

What you are describing is what we used to do at an OS/2 user group
meeting, however the meeting was (effectively) an all-day affair on
Saturdays.  The schedule ran something like this:

   9:00am (or earlier) setup the room [someone "on the board" would be
responsible for buying donuts...]
   9:30 people arrive and sign-in
  10:00 the main presentation -- note this left 30 mintues for people to
"filter in" and do some pre-meeting socializing
  11:30 Q & a
  11:50 break
  12:00 "SIG" meetings -- devsig, newsig, usersig, and "COLAsig" [people
hanging out at the soda machine for further socializing]
   1:30 to 2:00 or so -- raffle & cleanup

Considering the location was Costa Mesa, that meant a good hour-plus
drive each way, so (for me) my day was pretty much done after we cleaned
up  [this is also working from memory here, so times and activities are
approximate]

Attendance was well over 100 people per meeting; we had dues [you got a
printed newsletter outlining the next meeting] and we sold a "disk of
the month" [downloads of popular freeware or demos -- remember, this was
at a time when CD's weren't yet widely available, nor was "high speed"
internet in the home...]  We also had an elected board whose members met
on an extra night of the month TO REVIEW THE PAST MEETING AND PLAN THE
NEXT MEETINGS [what a concept!]  (of course, these meetings /were/ open
to the general membership, but due to their highly specialized nature,
amazingly few general members bothered to show up...)

> A problem: We would need 3 small rooms for this plus perhaps 
> one big room for a general assembly where the newbies meet 
> the advanced :-).

And, not so coincidentally, that is exactly what we had -- one large
meeting room for the main presentation and several smaller rooms for the
sig's...

I'd certainly like to see this type of meeting for Linux, but I doubt
that SGVLUG will evolve to that point given it's historical leanings
towards "anarchy" ;)