[H-GEN] HUMBUG meetings and talks

[Robert Brockway]

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On Wed, 14 Aug 2003, Arjen Lentz wrote:

> 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

Maddog Hall called us "unique".

> the above? HUMBUG is an established organisation, and there are those
> skills. Why not expand our activities to match our interests?

I remember this being floated before.  It seemed to me that the biggest
hurdle was support.  Right now a number of people work diligently and
consistently to make Humbug meetings run as smoothly as they do.  I know
from personal experience how it can be a huge time committment.  I think
that for additional meetings to start (say a weekday evening tete-a-tete
like LUV and most other (L|U)UGs) we'd need to see more people helping
out.  I think the idea has merit but I can't see any additional burden on
the club's current workhorses being a good thing (as it simply speeds up
burnout).  Remember these sorts of evening get together's usually involve
talks too.  We already do talks but in an irregular fashion (last I
checked anyway).  We'd need to guarantee a talk for each of the new
meetings (which admittedly would probably be only once per month).

So if the person-power was there I say go for it.

> 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.

AUUG has actively followed this model in the past.  I think that there
hasn't been as much activity lately.  If Humbug is having trouble
mustering the additional resources, perhaps we could get together with
AUUG to make it happen.

> 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!

Rather than a regular committment to start, how about a "one off" open day
involving a few talks, starting a few hours before the regular meeting
started.  Actually I think something just like that was done 2-3 years
ago.

Cheers,
	Rob

-- 
Robert Brockway B.Sc. email: robert at timetraveller.org, zzbrock at uqconnect.net
Linux counter project ID #16440 (http://counter.li.org)
"The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens" -Baha'u'llah

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