[H-GEN] HUMBUG meetings and talks

[Arjen Lentz]

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Hi all,

Somewhat related to the thread about talks... I visited the Linux Users
of Victoria in March, and what struck me most was the following:
 - They hold their meetings on a Tuesday evening.
 - The meetings are held in an auditorium: no computers (apart from fab
A/V facilities provided by IBM).
 - Massive attendance from geeks, newbies and even business people.

Their website is at www.luv.asn.au
The general meeting agenda is something like this:
 - Someone goes over the Linux/OSS news from the last month.
 - A beginner-level presentation on some Linux/OSS topic.
 - A (guest)speaker with an advanced topic.
(they also have special interest group meetings)


The reason this interests me is because most of us, apart from being
hobbyists, are interested in advancing Open Source solutions and some of
our jobs are related to that as well.
This means that we have quite a wealth of expertise available. But does
this expertise actually get utilised in HUMBUG? I don't think it does.

Now, I know this is not what HUMBUG was set up for originally. Hobbyists
dragging their PC in, hacking away... that's good too. But what about
the above? HUMBUG is an established organisation, and there are those
skills. Why not expand our activities to match our interests?

LUV's overal formula appears to be very successful, they attract new
people (this includes businesses who are thinking about using OSS
solutions). In short, they're spreading "the OSS word" effectively.

If we could pick up some of their ideas, we could keep the Saturday
'hacker-focused' meetings, but in addition to this develop something new
for Brisbane. Perhaps on a weekday evening. A formula that attracts new
people.
There are so many people out there now, wondering what this OSS stuff
is, with all sorts of practical questions. We could really do something
here!


Regards,
Arjen.
--
Arjen Lentz, Technical Writer, Trainer
Brisbane, QLD Australia
MySQL AB, www.mysql.com

Brisbane 3 November (5 days): Using & Managing MySQL Training
Training,Support,Licenses,T-shirts @ https://order.mysql.com/?marl


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