Hello everyone, I'm not dead yet, but I have been remiss in my duties. For that I apologize. As Tim says, we've all become too busy, me especially since joining/increasing responsibilities in two other organizations in the past year. I've mentioned this before, but I think I should formalize the current expectations for meetings: For the forseeable future, the WLUG meetings are always on the 2nd Thursday of every month, whether I forget to announce it or not, whether I can make it to the meeting or not, and whether there is a topic or speaker scheduled or not. If there isn't a specific speaker/topic decided in advance, the meetings are open forums for discussion and support. Until we get an automated reminder system going, here is the remaining schedule until June next year. Feel free to put these on your calendar now and set calendar event reminders (or simply create a recurring meeting for every 2nd Thursday). I'll post this to the website as well. Thu Oct 9 2014 7:00PM-9:00PM Campus Center Mid-Century Room Thu Nov 13 2014 7:00PM-9:00PM Campus Center Mid-Century Room Thu Dec 11 2014 7:00PM-9:00PM Campus Center Mid-Century Room Thu Jan 8 2015 7:00PM-9:00PM Campus Center Mid-Century Room Thu Feb 12 2015 7:00PM-9:00PM Campus Center Mid-Century Room Thu Mar 12 2015 7:00PM-9:00PM Campus Center Mid-Century Room Thu Apr 9 2015 7:00PM-9:00PM Campus Center Mid-Century Room Thu May 14 2015 7:00PM-9:00PM no room yet Thu Jun 11 2015 7:00PM-9:00PM no room yet We can discuss changing days, but I don't think the problem is the choice of day. There is always going to be a day that some people can never make, always make, or sometimes make. For myself personally, I cannot do Wednesdays except maybe in July and August. I'll also point out other local groups' schedules so we can avoid conflicts if possible (and for those looking for other groups!): Chelmsford Linux Meetup, www.meetup.com/linux-393, 1st Thursdays Worcester Linux Users Group (WLUG), wlug.org, 2nd Thursdays Back Bay Lisa (BBLISA), bblisa.org, 2nd Wednesdays Boston Linux/Unix (BLU), blu.org, 3rd Wednesdays (and other events on other days) FOSS User Group in Natick, Massachusetts, http://natickfoss.org, 3-6PM on the 1st Thursday of most months (but 2nd Thursday in January, July and September) Greater New Hampshire LUG (GNHLUG), http://wiki.gnhlug.org/twiki2/bin/view/Www/OurChapters DLSLUG 1st Thursday Carson Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover SLUG 2nd Monday Morse Hall, UNH, Durham MonadLUG 2nd Monday SAU 1 offices, Peterborough ManchLUG 4th Tuesday Wings Your Way, Manchester PySIG 4th Thursday Amoskeag Business Incubator, Manchester MerriLUG 1st Tuesday MakeIt? Labs, Nashua (not sure of the current status of these chapters) Linux Rhode Island, linuxri.org, http://www.linuxri.org/, 2nd Saturdays Greater Hartford Linux User Group (GHGLUG), http://www.meetup.com/GHGLUG/, 4th Wednesdays Finally, another concern I'm sure people have is "Will there be anyone at the meetings if I drive all the way there?" To address this, we could all be more diligent about emailing the list when we plan to attend, or we could move to a more social website oriented system, like Meetup.com, where people can "join" each month and say they are going to be there. As you can see, several of the local groups already use meetup.com. Meetup.com does cost money for the group organizer (it is free for everyone else who joins a group), but we have some money in the bank to get us started. We'd just have to take up a collection every month to keep it going. Pricing is cheap, $24/year: http://help.meetup.com/customer/portal/articles/465027-organizer-dues-price-... Sadly, I'm probably not going to make it today's meeting either. On Wed, Oct 08, 2014 at 08:28:35PM -0400, Tim Keller wrote:
Okay Gang,
In the 10+ years that this group has been in existence many of us have gotten married, had a couple of kids, etc. This means that planning for a WLUG meeting needs to happen in a much more scheduled manner. Sending out a meeting reminder the day before a meeting just doesn't cut it anymore. I've spoken with Chuck and things are going to be changing.
However, before we do anything, I think it makes sense to ask some questions.
Does the first Wednesday of every month work for everybody?
Would going back to the Wed/Thurs alternating schedule work better for people?
What I'd like to implement is an automated meeting system that'll automatically send a reminder at the beginning of the month and then a subsequent reminder the day or two before.
I'd love input on this.
Thanks, Tim.