On 9/13/06, Paul M Foster <paulf@quillandmouse.com> wrote:
>
> 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. ;-)
The last I heard of the sarasota meetings from my personal experience is
almost none of the drunks attented they do all there planning on there irc
channel and website.
Paul
>
> --
> Paul M. Foster
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