Kid-friendly LUGs?

[Little Bit]

I went with a friend to a Linux Users Group meeting. It wasn't kid-friendly (nor girl-friendly) at all! Everyone was much older and there was drinking and cussing and um, "adult conversation." One obnoxious old guy kept offering to buy drinks for me and Robin even after we told him we're just kids. There was very little conversation about Linux.

Is there such a thing as a LUG where kids/teens are taken at least a little seriously? And I don't mean, "Here's an Edubuntu disk, kid. Now run along and play," or "sit here in my lap, little girl, and tell me all about it."

We'll end up starting a Linux club at school I guess, but it would be alot easier if there was some national "umbrella" organization we could affiliate our club with... maybe to share resources, a safe web site (I did find one at teensonlinux.org), that kinda thing.

Do you all know of any such thing? Have you tried a Linux club at school?

Oh, and if you ladies go to a LUG, um... don't wear your hair in pigtails. Just say'n.

Amy

[pro003]

Hmmm... Cute story. I never been a lady so I can't tell you.

Anyhow, keep trying.

[Little Bit]

Hmmm... Cute story. I never been a lady so I can't tell you.

That's a goof on my part... I sort of cross-posted this in the Ubuntu Women forum and forgot to change it here (edited now, but too late). Sorry...

It's funny though because Robin is a boy - small, long-haired, and um, well, pretty! That one obnoxious guy was trying to put some moves on him too. Robin thought it was funny. He didn't feel threatened like I did, but as soon as I said so we got out of there.

Amy

[heroidi]

I went with a friend to a Linux Users Group meeting. It wasn't kid-friendly (nor girl-friendly) at all! Everyone was much older and there was drinking and cussing and um, "adult conversation." One obnoxious old guy kept offering to buy drinks for me and Robin even after we told him we're just kids. There was very little conversation about Linux.

Is there such a thing as a LUG where kids/teens are taken at least a little seriously? And I don't mean, "Here's an Edubuntu disk, kid. Now run along and play," or "sit here in my lap, little girl, and tell me all about it."

We'll end up starting a Linux club at school I guess, but it would be alot easier if there was some national "umbrella" organization we could affiliate our club with... maybe to share resources, a safe web site (I did find one at teensonlinux.org), that kinda thing.

Do you all know of any such thing? Have you tried a Linux club at school?

Oh, and if you ladies go to a LUG, um... don't wear your hair in pigtails. Just say'n.

Amy

Well i'm the leader of my LUG and here most of the members are kids and teenagers so in witch town do you live and where?

[hetx]

Can't help you there, on the other side of the Atlantic. I wonder if there's a user on this forum that just now hid his location because he realised the young girl he was hitting on is actually here too. Way creepy.

I say go for the Linux club at school, I'm sure someone here knows of some organisation that might be able to help you out a bit.

[starcannon]

I went with a friend to a Linux Users Group meeting. It wasn't kid-friendly (nor girl-friendly) at all! Everyone was much older and there was drinking and cussing and um, "adult conversation." One obnoxious old guy kept offering to buy drinks for me and Robin even after we told him we're just kids. There was very little conversation about Linux.

Is there such a thing as a LUG where kids/teens are taken at least a little seriously? And I don't mean, "Here's an Edubuntu disk, kid. Now run along and play," or "sit here in my lap, little girl, and tell me all about it."

We'll end up starting a Linux club at school I guess, but it would be alot easier if there was some national "umbrella" organization we could affiliate our club with... maybe to share resources, a safe web site (I did find one at teensonlinux.org), that kinda thing.

Do you all know of any such thing? Have you tried a Linux club at school?

Oh, and if you ladies go to a LUG, um... don't wear your hair in pigtails. Just say'n.

Amy
I guess each LUG has it's own flavor; here in Spokane WA, your experience would have been wholly different; we all had beer and pizza, talked tech/geek stuff for about an hour, watched some local battle bots malfunction on the pizza parlor floor, then sat down to a nice lecture from one of the developers of KDE, complete with streaming video. She(the developer) then answered questions at the end of her lecture. We all had a good time, and it felt nothing at all like a sleazy meat market. Find or start another LUG in your area, thats about all you can hope for I suppose.

GL and HF

Edit:
I'm sorry you were treated so disrespectfully, I reread my post and realized I had not been as sympathetic as I really felt. Truly, if your local LUG has turned into a geek meat market, I'd strongly suggest you start a more serious LUG.

[DeadSuperHero]

Although it may be a huge time investment, I would advise you to possibly try starting your own LUG specifically for the demographic you want. In the long run, it'd be totally worth it considering you'd be getting a group that has the exact setting you want.

That reminds me, I need to find a LUG to join soon enough, I hear they can be a lot of fun.

[TBOL3]

Hmm, I'm sorry about that. Although, thank you for posting this, as it gave me the idea to search around for local LUGs here. Although, the name leaves much to be desired... SLLUG, not to be confused with slug. :lolflag:

[Eviltechie]

Well just be glad you don't have some guy spend two hole hours talking about the intel compiler and some other obscure project.

And for some reason I am cursed to be busy the second thursday of every month, when the meetings are.

[Little Bit]

Well i'm the leader of my LUG and here most of the members are kids and teenagers so in witch town do you live and where?

I think I won't say which LUG yet, unless I get no satisfaction after a complaint to the group's leaders. If I get the same condescending attitude, then I will embarrass them, big time.

How do you start a LUG of your own? The one we went to is closest to home, but it's still more than an hour drive away. There's none in my home town.

Thanks!
Amy

[Phreaker]

Really unfortunate for you to have such a bad experience.
I never really went to a LUG, because it's mostly lectures

[Bucky Ball]

The best way to start a LUG would be to contact other LUGS, talk to the people that got them together about how they went about it, then sit down with a huge piece of paper and something to write with (possibly food and drink also) and go for it!

By the next day, you will have made a start and have plenty to work toward on your piece of paper.

[heroidi]

I think I won't say which LUG yet, unless I get no satisfaction after a complaint to the group's leaders. If I get the same condescending attitude, then I will embarrass them, big time.

How do you start a LUG of your own? The one we went to is closest to home, but it's still more than an hour drive away. There's none in my home town.

Thanks!
Amy

I have older people in my LUG but they respect me as theyre leader, and i'm responsible for my town, my town's LUG is one of the first in the State!

[elizabeth]

First off, I want to express how sorry to hear that you had such a bad experience at a LUG.

I will say that I don't think any of the actions by the LUG folks were actively malicious, I've found that groups like that simple get stuck in a rut when it comes to behavior and don't bother *thinking* about how others may feel about their behavior. And it feeds into itself, I doubt you and your friend are the first to be put off by that behavior.

Since this is an Ubuntu site, I also want to mention that LUGs and Ubuntu LoCo Teams (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoTeams) tend to have a very different feel. Even the LUG where I am used to be a bit of a Boys Club, but the Ubuntu team has always felt more friendly, had more women participating, and frequently has teens and even young children working on and attending in the events. Since taking over the LUG in my area I've worked to foster that kind of atmosphere in the LUG as well :)


How do you start a LUG of your own? The one we went to is closest to home, but it's still more than an hour drive away. There's none in my home town.

Find a location, pick a date, get some people together (maybe from your school?), have a meeting!

Of course having a successful LUG is not as simple. I don't want to overwhelm, but I do want to make sure you have the resources, so here goes, the following are fantastic resources:

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/30268
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO.html
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Linux_PR/newlug.html

Best of luck! :)

[linuxguymarshall]

I am 14 and can't say there is much to do in the realm of "kid-friendly" LUGs. I go to the universities LUG but for being "kid friendly" as you put it I would say they probably dont exist. And of course they dont JUST talk about Linux. Its not all about Linux, it would loose a human element if you didnt talk about other things and found some like-minded people.

[jginspace]

Two weeks now. Any response? Suitable or not suitable?

[XubuRoxMySox]

Two weeks now. Any response? Suitable or not suitable?

An apology in an e-mail from one of the LUG officers. Amy and I talked about how "getting our satisfaction" by publishing the name or location of the LUG could earn us a reputation as "disgruntled" or "troublemakers" and it could make starting our own LUG or Linux club that much harder.

We know at least that someone is aware of our displeasure and probably just doesn't know what to say other than "I'm sorry it happened." And it's not worth it to go after them and embarrass the whole LUG because of the idiotic behavior of a handful of their members (or maybe they were guests for that matter).

It's like my Daddy says:

"Y'know a bulldawg can whup a skunk, son. But... it ain't worth it."

-Robin

[jginspace]

Well done, you got an apology. Best of luck.

[matmatmat]

I think there is a teen lug, but it's just a website

[Swagman]

It's easy to setup your own usergroup. All you need is enthusiasm.

I setup a Usergroup in my garage. Here's a grab of our first meeting Pic ( http://www.upload3r.com/serve/120809/1250076735.jpg) <-----

It was minus 2 degrees that day... Brrrr. People still came.

I charged £3 per person which mainly got spent on biscuits & coffee etc but people kept on coming the first sunday of each month.
People feed off your enthusiasm and start "chipping in" with knowledge, components etc. My garage quickly got equipped with a 16 port router and Lan sockets (and a heater for the winter).

IT grew into a twice yearly major event called "Big Bash".

Fortunately for me, our local community hall is just over the road so we were able to beam a signal to the hall and have about 30 computers connecting to my house via wireless. ( My poor 5mb connection lol)

I always made it a fun event and local companies chipped in with "goodies" for the raffle prizes. Main prize was an entire computer.

here's some images of Big Bash (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rycochet/245393165/)

And a pic for the net guru's

Mike Parker on Infrastucture (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rycochet/245394223/in/set-72157594287763554)

He drove 150 miles, bringing various network gear from his own company to make this all work.

Really, as I said in opening... It's all down to you (and your dad).

[macogw]

Aw :( That's nothing like our LUG. We meet monthly for a presentation about some nifty open source project or a howto. Afterward, half the people go home, and the other half go get kebabs. Talk mostly stays on Linux and programming topics, though seeing as this is Washington, DC...politics comes up too.

I've never seen any kids at the LUG, but since it's downtown in the business district on a school night, I'm not surprised. Besides, one of the nearby high schools has a LUG of its own. There's one woman who regularly shows up, but she wasn't there last time I went.

[Warpnow]

Alot of LUGs meet in collleges. I think the atmosphere would be younger with one, at least.

Sorry to hear your experience was so terrible. That is ridiculous.

[kk0sse54]

I went with a friend to a Linux Users Group meeting. It wasn't kid-friendly (nor girl-friendly) at all! Everyone was much older and there was drinking and cussing and um, "adult conversation." One obnoxious old guy kept offering to buy drinks for me and Robin even after we told him we're just kids. There was very little conversation about Linux.

Is there such a thing as a LUG where kids/teens are taken at least a little seriously? And I don't mean, "Here's an Edubuntu disk, kid. Now run along and play," or "sit here in my lap, little girl, and tell me all about it."

We'll end up starting a Linux club at school I guess, but it would be alot easier if there was some national "umbrella" organization we could affiliate our club with... maybe to share resources, a safe web site (I did find one at teensonlinux.org), that kinda thing.

Do you all know of any such thing? Have you tried a Linux club at school?

Oh, and if you ladies go to a LUG, um... don't wear your hair in pigtails. Just say'n.

Amy

There's a Florida Ubuntu loco team https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FloridaTeam, you can join us on irc on freenode at #ubuntu-us-fl

[Post Monkeh]

First off, I want to express how sorry to hear that you had such a bad experience at a LUG.

I will say that I don't think any of the actions by the LUG folks were actively malicious, I've found that groups like that simple get stuck in a rut when it comes to behavior and don't bother *thinking* about how others may feel about their behavior. And it feeds into itself, I doubt you and your friend are the first to be put off by that behavior.


id agree with this.

i've never been to a LUG, but as a man who filrts between geeky/non geeky pastimes, you have to remember that most men have a sense of humour that's beyond womens tastes, however "geek" men are used to dealing with "geek women who, in general, are just a little bit more receptive to this kind of sense of humour, most likely because they're simply used to it. it doesn't make it right, but i'd genuinely doubt the guy meant any harm by it. what you need to learn is to stick up for yourself. and i don't mean that you should learn to just accept attitudes like this, but believe me, learning to stick up for yourself is no bad thing, and if you'd put this guy in his place with a put down or two, he would likely have laughed it off and his attitude would have changed.

i wouldn't let it put you off, i'm sure most groups would be welcoming. the "women" population of the computer world is expanding all the time, it's especially good to see young girls interested in doing more than just following the party line of windows & messanger & bebo.

[Little Bit]

I'm sure he didn't intend to frighten me. He was just drunk. Looking back on it now it's funny, especially because the guy kept flirting with Robin too (even though Robin's a boy and told the guy so). I was not amused at the time, though.

But the good news is, as Robin said, we did get an apology and some contact information on what to do in our Linux club at school. Actually it's just going to be a computer club, but hopefully we'll get a chance to show them the power and beauty and awesomeness of Linux!

We'll need something more visually impressive than Robin's dance studio remix (minimum Ubuntu with the lxde desktop), so we need a bigger computer with lots of RAM so we can do Compiz and Conky and twirl that thingy around on the screen and stuff, lol. Got a lot to learn yet!

Thank you all so much!

Grateful,
Amy

[hetx]

If you're specifically after a flashy looking desktop KDE (Kubuntu) is decent, looks more like what Windows-users expect a "pretty" desktop to look like. Plus it's easy to install and doesn't really require THAT much more power


sudo apt-get install kde

[Warpnow]

While it used to be true Kubuntu was flashier than Ubuntu, its hard to decide now...with built in compiz versus kde4...both are damn flashy...

[Swagman]

The best thing to do in your computer club is to do weekly builds on the same machine but install different o/s's.

You all get to learn how it goes together and how to install & configure the different operating systems.

Just gotta get someone to donate compatible parts !!

Shame your not over here in Uk. I have a spare 17" LCD monitor doing nothing and a spare 250gb sata drive and a case.

Wait a minute.. What am I talking about.. I've got about 4 complete machines in bits !!