Dylan William Hardison wrote:
> I've heard rumors lately that Paul / other people want to cut back on the
> number of SLUG meetings we have, due to lack of attendance or something.
>
> I'd like to point out that even without a meeting coordinator present, St. Pete
> has never failed to have a meeting since I joined SLUG, and the fewest
> we've ever had was 4 people.
> Last month we had a good 10-12 people show up, even though the meeting
> was 'canceled'.
>
> Fact of the matter is, the St. Pete meetings would continue indefinitely
> regardless of any outside factors.
>
Who was it who insisted that even though Aaron hadn't secured a
permanent meeting place, people could meet at a local coffee house? You.
Why do you suppose anyone showed up? Because you did that. That
effectively makes you a de facto temporary meeting coordinator.
The point here is that, if no one takes *any* responsibility for a
meeting, it will *not* happen, including St Pete.
> I'm also a somewhat-regular at the Tampa meetings, and I don't see a lot
> of overlap between the two. Lots of people that go to Tampa wouldn't go
> to St. Pete, and vice-versa.
>
Oddly, Mario does see overlap.
> I also know, geographically speaking, Tampa and Brandon meetings
> wouldn't merge well.
>
Why? Brandon is way the heck closer to Tampa than New Port Richey,
Sarasota, or any other meeting.
> Thus, it would be unreasonable at least to merge St. Pete, Tampa, and
> Brandon. Sarasota is too far to even consider merging with Tampa.
>
> Of course, this is third-hand information. It was mentioned at the Tampa
> meeting, which I wasn't able to attend, and was relayed to me by Yetr2 /
> William Overstreet (the president of the HCC linux group).
>
> Iff we want to restructure the meetings, the most logical way would
> be having 1-2 meetings per county per month.
>
> Pinellas:
> South (St. Pete, Seminole, Pinellas Park, Largo, etc)
> North (Dunedin, Clearwater, etc)
>
> Hillsborough:
> Tampa
> Brandon
>
> Manatee/Sarasota:
> No idea
>
This was actually a private thread being discussed by the officers and
originated by myself.
The impetus was that currently Dunedin is having 2-5 people per meeting,
and Brandon's attendance is fairly weak and has been for a long time.
NPR gets 2-5 people per month, last I checked. There was a time when
Tampa meetings drew 30-50 people.
Attendance is clearly down overall. By contrast, membership in the
group, as measured by s*bscr*bers to the lists, is level and has been
for five or six years.
So meetings aren't as appealing. Why? I can think of several reasons.
1) Little is available for raffles. My view is that if this is the only
reason you're coming to meetings, stay home. We're not in the raffle
business, and we're not here to give members free stuff. It's a nice
option, when we have it. But the market has changed and vendors are less
inclined to spend money to supply groups with swag.
2) We don't typically have presentations. There are huge groups out
there who routinely have presentations and large meeting attendance. Our
experience has also been that presentations tend to bring in attendees.
3) It may be that Linux these days is easier to use, meaning there's
less reason to go to meetings for help. Perhaps corroborating this, you
may have noticed a decrease in list traffic over time.
I'm of the opinion that more meetings dilute attendance at the main
meetings. That's just my opinion. I know of no other group anywhere
which has as many meetings, particularly for the geographic area and
population we have. NTLUG (North Texas LUG) lives in the Dallas-Ft Worth
metroplex, where there are probably 6 million people, but only one
meeting in Irving, between Dallas and Ft Worth (they also have
presentations). The only reason we have this many is that enterprising
folks decided that they wanted meetings closer to home, and were willing
to run them.
What would get people to meetings? Maybe...
1) Make Linux harder.
2) Pay scantily clad beautiful women to attend.
3) Give presentations.
4) Have fewer meetings in more centralized locations.
5) Have meeting leaders who are so charismatic that even if they don't
have presentations, people will come just to watch them sit in a chair.
But there comes a time when 2-5 or 5-10 people at a meeting simply isn't
worth it for the person running the meeting. Most of us have tried to
get people to give presentations, to no avail. (And even then, many
presentations sail way over the heads of attendees.) And I for one am
not the charismatic salesman type who can get people to meetings just by
the force of my blazing personality.
So it's up to individual meeting leaders (who, after all, volunteer to
do this) to determine whether leading a meeting with slim attendance is
worth it. I can't fault them if they decide it isn't, and I don't think
anyone else should either. This isn't a *group* decision (though people
are welcome to weigh in). It's the decision of individual meeting
leaders, since their time and effort is what's involved.
Personally, I'd suggest one in Tampa, or one in Tampa and one in
Pinellas. (And then perhaps the Sarasota folk, for whom meetings are
apparently just an excuse to plan the next drinking binge. ;-)
Paul
-- Paul M. Foster ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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