However, I'd just like to express my support for this type of meeting.
It's the way things are done in Fort Wayne, and it works pretty well.
We meet the first Thursday of the month at a place similar to the
Upland or Lennie's (a brewery that's also a restaurant, so age is not
an issue), and just have an informal, social, "business" meeting where
the only defined "business" goal is to pick this month's meeting topic
and a presenter if applicable. Although conversations tend to steadily
come back to Linux and Linux-related subject, rarely is the subject
matter regulated and usually only if it's most of the way through the
meeting and we haven't yet discussed this month's topic. Then on the
third Thursday of the month we follow through with a "formal",
presentation like meeting that is (usually, mostly) on the decided
topic.
People show up for the informal chatty meeting, and then they have a
say in the conversation that determines the next topic which makes
them much more likely to actually show up for that formal meeting, and
the topic should theoretically be at least relatively interesting to
the majority of people who were at the informal meeting, so even
people who didn't show up should be more likely to be interested in
the topic. This encourages people to think up interesting topics to
propose for presentation, and have the time to prepare after deciding
on which, rather than the all too familiar ("Oh, crap, there's a LUG
meeting tomorrow and noone has proposed a topic, I guess I'll present
on %s!" % whateverRandomThingIHappenToBeWorkingOnAtTheMoment).
I don't know how Fort Wayne compares to Bloomington per capita, but I
feel this meeting practice contributes to a higher attendance rate, a
higher amount of general familiarity amongst members, a more palpable
"feeling of community", and other Good Things.
Just some thoughts of encouragement.
Greetings from Fort Wayne!
Simón
On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 8:33 AM, Dave Cooley <dcooley@kiva.net> wrote:
> Fellow geeks-
>
> Our next meeting is this coming Tuesday, April the 8th, I'm gonna call
> Yogi's "patio" (really, just the front room) at 7:00pm.
>
> There will be no presentation, though anybody who wants to give one in May
> is encouraged to attend and let us all know.
>
> Can I get a rough head count, so that I can get a table?
>
> Cooley
>
> --
> Dave Cooley
> dcooley@kiva.net
>
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>
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