[CDBUG-talk] July Meeting Followup

[Jonathan Franks]

On 7/31/05, Garance A Drosihn <drosih at rpi.edu> wrote:
> 
> Ugh.  I forgot all about the meeting.  I think my brain has
> short-circuited -- most of this weekend was made up of me
> forgetting one thing or another.

Not a problem. You and Jesse have been at almost every meeting. Nobody
is obligated to come, ever. (obviously)

> 
> >However, with 26 people currently subscribed to the list, I'd
> >really like some thoughts on how to increase turn out for the
> >monthly meetings. I personally think that a change of venue is
> >in order, but perhaps together we can work out some ideas to
> >increase attendance.
> 
> I was going to suggest that we just meet in the computer center
> here on the RPI campus.  Parking would be annoying, as always,
> but there's a conference room here in the VCC that I can get
> into. 

Well, I'm game. I'm a little concerned about the parking, and in an
ideal world I would rather meet in a more "neutral" location, but all
in all this would make a lot more sense than Panera. Let's see what
sort of feedback the others have on it, but right now I'd say let's
plan on trying it out.

>I have a new Powerbook G4, and I was thinking it might be
> entertaining to try and install freebsd/ppc on that.  I'm not
> sure it would have been *successful*, but it might have been
> entertaining.

That sounds like it might have been a fun little project. Perhaps we
can do something like this next meeting. (If you do the install prior,
I just aquired a _very_ old SparcStation that might be fun to install
on... assuming that it actually arrives in time. )


> 
> On the other hand, imagine how stupid it would have been if I
> had suggested that, and then forgot to show up for the meeting!
> 

> 
> It might also be that people are gone for the summer.  I know
> that several people I work with are gone for the next week or
> two, with vacations.

This is true, of course... but there are definitely a number of list
members who have never come. I don't have a problem with this at all,
but it would be great to find ways to entice more of them to come out.
Of course there are a few who are not in the area, but then that's not
really the point.

It may simply be that 26 people is a small group, and with some out of
area and others unable to make Sundays and so on, 10 to 20 percent
turnout is about the most we can expect, but I'd like to strive for
more.

In any event I'm mulling over a few ideas that might help out as well,
so I guess we'll see what everyone has to say and take it from there.


-Jonathan