Spake Paul M Foster on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 at 03:36PM -0400:
> 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.
Well, at least some people showed up because I have the phone number
and/or email address of many people that attend, including a fair number
of people that refuse to join the list (typically because they think
mailing list == SPAM).
When we have a last minute change, I call or email as many people as
possible and alert them. It helps that I know almost everyone that
attends the meetings on a semi-personal basis.
Although, I never remember Kevin Moran's last name...
> The point here is that, if no one takes *any* responsibility for a
> meeting, it will *not* happen, including St Pete.
But people are taking responsibility.
I regularly coordinate the St. Pete meetings.
I regularly open the Tampa meetings.
When I'm not at the Tampa meeting, and Mario is late or unable to
attend, Alex Harris opens or coordinates them.
So, if Aaron is stolen by the Amish again, and Mario decides to fortify
his Island Refuge, Alex could handle Tampa and I could handle 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.
There are several people that only attend the St. Pete meetings. Among
these are Bill Lancaster, Possum and Peter.
A recent transplant, Eric Jahn, usually does not have a schedule that
allows going to Tampa.
This cuts both ways. Only a few Tampa-people are willing to come to the
St. Pete meeting, such as Alex Harris, Chris Hotchkiss (lives in Lutz,
but works in St. Pete now), Jonathon (sometimes), and Bob Foxworth
(sometimes).
William Overstreet thus far as never been to a St. Pete meeting, which
is understandable as he lives in Temple Terrace.
These are only examples, there's a lot of non-overlap, especially with
the more shy people.
> >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.
As someone that for an entire year, rode with someone from Tampa to
Brandon twice a month, I would say it is debatable.
> 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.
The Dunedin meeting is often a topic of discussion at the St. Pete
meeting. It's close by, relatively speaking, but Saturday morning is a
time for sleep.
> 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.
Well, consider the number of people that have moved away but are still
on the list. I wonder how large this number is?
Plus there is a collection of people not on the list.
I also know for a fact that many people are simply *very* busy with
other parts of their life.
Dave Lowe, Nate Anderson, and James Miller have all been busy with their
respective jobs and family lives.
> 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.
Presentations also chase off some of the people capable of giving them.
It depends on the audience.
My favorite meeting is like the last St. Pete one, were we discussed the
merits of state, the relation of mathematics to programming, and a 64
core (64 cores!) sun machine.
probably a mix of 50/50 discussion group / presentation is best.
> 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.
it's not a matter of closeness. I live in Seminole, and driving to St.
Pete is a piece of cake. Driving to Clearwater is not much harder,
though it takes 30 minutes to get there.
Going to Tampa is entirely different. It's easier to get to Sarasota,
in fact, then it is to get to Tampa.
Also, it is easier to stay out until midnight if home is only a 30
minutes away. Some of our best meetings when from 7PM to 1:00AM.
> 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.
Any coordinator is free to stop coordinating the meetings.
However, if is at least one person interested, the meeting is not likely
to stop.
--
"Normality depends on how you look at it. For me you're definitely normal if I
exclude the strange interest you have in celebrity steel cage monkey boxing ;-)"
-- My friend, talking to me about my normality.
-
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