Looking to form a Loco Team North Central Texas

[catco_designs]

Hello I am looking to form a Ubuntu Team south of the DFW metro area. I have about 7 years with different unix builds and am always trying new things with them. Let me know if you are interested in joining a group that would have meetings in Burllesson area.
http://dailystruggles.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/loco.jpg
I am open to meeting other places but I am trying to start a loco team nearby

[elizabeth]

Hello I am looking to form a Ubuntu Team south of the DFW metro area.

You're in luck, there is already a DFW regional team in Texas!

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DallasTeam

You'll want to work with them to plan events in the area, as there are probably a number of people already involved who are near you :)

[catco_designs]

You're in luck, there is already a DFW regional team in Texas!

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DallasTeam

You'll want to work with them to plan events in the area, as there are probably a number of people already involved who are near you :)

The issue I see is this
Meetings are held in Frisco that is almost a hundred miles away
This is north of the DFW area

I live south of Dallas near Fort Worth area so two groups for this large of an area is not far fetched

Come on really would you drive into New Jersey or New York to go to a meeting. Texas is a huge state there are several linux help groups in other parts of the state i.e.- Amarillo, Houston, Austin

I believe that it may give an option for newer members in my area to meet.
But thank you they are welcome to come also... I will just organise it with the people I have mentored

I will post meeting dates and locations here and on some friends websites.
Thank you for you input though...

[elizabeth]

The issue I see is this
Meetings are held in Frisco that is almost a hundred miles away
This is north of the DFW area

I live south of Dallas near Fort Worth area so two groups for this large of an area is not far fetched

There are probably others who are currently involved in the DFW who are also in your area, no need to create a whole new regional subteam :)

Anyone can plan a meeting so I suggest when you plan yours make sure you let the rest of the DFW team know so they can attend if they're in the area.

[catco_designs]

What is the issue with having more than one group wow such resitance on a simple topic
And I like how you did not quote what I said in full YOU must work for FOX
:D
I will arrange some meetings and post the schedule on here ...
The group that you mention has little activity in the first place on their mailing list and the website well hmmm...
I will let the other group take part but I will do this mainly for users locally that I know of that way we don't have to take a ROAD trip to learn a little more.
Following the Ubuntu concept "For the Community"
what may be good for Penn State may not apply in Texas because of the size of this state
The DFW area is huge Dallas County alone is 908 square miles and that does not include the adjoining counties or suburbs which is estimated at more than 4000 square miles
The meetings that are held are currently held North of Dallas County.
and the meetings miss a large portion of the populus by simply being so far north.
I believe that the area should have meetings to support all the areas. Be it one group or twenty. I thought that it was all about spreading the Ubuntu and helping other users. :D

[catco_designs]

I would simply think that the matter of convenience would attract more users and that is what it is about attracting the user to a place that he/she can learn more and easily become involved.
The community concept is what I see. There is a huge market on that side of the metroplex (telecom corridor) and there is a huge need on this side also (telecom corridor,colleges) that is why I would suggest a meeting place that is closer to the colleges also as many have extremely limited resources.
You may call it what you like a group a sub or whatever but the need is present and believe that it should be addressed.
Maybe if you lived nearby you would see this.

[Druke]

I see what you're saying, but Dallas, nay Texas itself is not the only place with this problem.

Scheduling a separate meeting is fine, but you should still go through the Dallas team if you operate within Dalls, Texas. Schedule meetings for a south Dallas meetup, then periodically hold a meeting for all Dallas somewhere central.

A separate loco team, a separate meeting group necessitates not.

[JJNova]

Hello Catco!

I'm JJNova, and I work in Fort Worth. Travel there each day from McKinney. I know, crappy, right? I've actually looked into moving to Burleson, but White Settlement seems to be calling out to me more. Plus, Burleson has grown exponentially in the last year.

I'm a member of the Dallas Team, and thought I would drop in and introduce myself. You're right in pointing out the lack of activity on our mailing list, and that's something we are working on correcting. Most of our members communicate with each other through IRC, telephone, or email. It's been brought to our attention that the lack of activity on the mailing list has led some to believe that our group is inactive. As I see you are under a similar impression.

I would really like to drop in and attend your first meeting if you get one together. Even if it's just a couple of people sitting around, talking about Open Source news and drinking beer. That's what the majority of our meetings are about. Mostly the beer part. Of course, the more we do of the beer part, the more talking that happens.

I just want to point out that we don't have a website, and if you found an address for a website that has our name on it, please share it with us. We are very much an active group, as we are working on our One Computer a Month (OCAM) project, which involves us recycling computer hardware and donating them to school aged children (installed with Ubuntu + Edubuntu, of course).

The reason we meet in Plano currently is because the location is central for most of our members, serves beer, has a light atmosphere for newcomers, they serve beer, have video games and have a number of lagers on tap.

Sorry that we seem so elusive. I understand your frustration with Ubuntu no longer acknowledging regional teams. We lost all the perks we used to have a little over a year ago. We agree that Texas is too large for a "state team" to represent us all (for the reasons you have presented). If you get a moment, feel free to check out our Wiki and drop in on IRC.

http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DallasTeam

-JJ

[catco_designs]

Thank you for writing JJNova. I see nothing wrong with a satelite meeting such as what is held in Frisco but making it mobile by having meetings in small towns like Burleson and Hillsboro, Weatherford or Waco.

I donate computers but I dont have some catchy name like OCAM. I just give away old machines that I have or I have put together from pieces. Just something I do since I help several shops scrap out old boxes.

The Burleson area bi-weekly meeting could catch the other half of the metro area. But also I would like to meet monthly in smaller communities outside the metroplex to help support users from remote communities. Like a travelling group or Mobile support team trying to help promote the Ubuntu theory "Community".

Many of the people that I am aware of locally don't get to a meeting more because of inconvenience than a lack of desire to attend. This coupled with the fact that most people are pretty tight on money would drive the need for an experience locally. If it were presented in their town not mine not yours this would be the appeal.

I believe the mediums that are available to me could help to promote such a satellite drive and in the end I think it's merely not about my, yours or their group but just to get a ball rolling. Get the meetings started.

Just think about it this way if the only meeting you knew about was 100 miles away would you attend? Now what if it was 150 miles? or more?

There are many who use Linux all over the place but to isolate them because merely geological location makes them feel unsupported.

To drive to small town give away a few machines all to drive or endorse or merely help the users who want to learn a new thing. I see nothing wrong with the idea.

You are WELCOME to attend as these will be public I will post meeting dates, locations, and times on here and other sites.

[JJNova]

Hey Cato, I also suggest making posts to the Ubuntu Texas mailing list. That way other will know what is going on across the state.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-tx

[catco_designs]

I will post on here as previously stated I will publish on several sites. I am not against the Dallas group just too much drive to go to an arcade/bar/meeting place.

What I am doing is not to drive a wedge between groups but rather to get more overall participants. Making it easier for the end user to see a channel they can go to for support and help or advice. If we put ourselves out of the way or inconvenient then what good is that.

I will try to keep any groups and mailing lists up to date but I know that I will post here at a minimum.