Anyone frequent their local LUG?

[samalex]

Hi Everyone...

I've helped keep our local LUG running for many years now (since 2001 with a short lull between 2004 and 2007). I'm just curious how many of you participate in your local LUG meetings. And if there is no LUG in your area if you think there's enough support to start one.

For me even though our LUG varies at times in membership, we have a good local base with several colleges and lots of folks who enjoy meeting once a month. It definitely has its highs with 15-20 people at times to sometimes just 3-4, but with our online forum and website constantly evolving I'd like to think we have a good community presence.

Our goals are to expand the group and start advertising, which Marketing is probably our biggest problem, but I'm curious to know what other groups do.

Also our group is the Heart of Texas Linux Users Group based in Waco, Texas - http://www.hotlug.org or http://bbs.hotlug.org if anyone's interested. Even if you're not in the Central Texas area we're open to all :)

Take care --

Sam

[bobmitch]

Went to a few back in Scotland, but I`ve moved to Michigan, USA recently.
Anybody know of any good groups in this area> :)

[kaldor]

I think there's only one on this entire island. And from their website, it looks dead.

[samalex]

I think there's only one on this entire island. And from their website, it looks dead.

Unfortunately that seems to be the fate of many LUG's. They start but don't have the momentum or resources to keep them going. Ours has been on the verge of dieing a few times, and even did die in 2004 when we only had me and two other people showing-up for meetings. In 2007 I sparked it back off and since then it's seen as many as 20 active users and as little as 4 or 5. The thing that's helped is I think me pushing it along even during the lulls and keeping the website and online message forum going. Yeah we've had weeks and months of little activity, but moving it along and keeping the site from getting stagnant helps as people start finding the group. It only takes a couple of people to join-up and start participating to rekindle the group.

I think LUG's still have a place in the FOSS Community, even though with so many resources online now it's sometimes easier to go to places like Ubuntu Forums then query the LUG, but for me having that interaction with like-minded people outside of the computer is great.

Here are some sites to help find or start a LUG:
http://www.linux.org/groups/
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO.html
http://dir.yahoo.com/computers_and_internet/software/operating_systems/unix/linux/user_groups/
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Installfest-HOWTO/introduction.html

Sam

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Went to a few back in Scotland, but I`ve moved to Michigan, USA recently.
Anybody know of any good groups in this area> :)

Interestingly enough, Ubuntu-MI is always appearing in my search results, so they must be good!

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MichiganTeam

I live in Vancouver and there's a really big, good group here (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CanadianTeam/Vancouver). I went to the monthly meeting last month and I have been meaning to go to others. (They have stuff going on practically every week!).

It's an interesting experience because there are a lot of people who don't develop software at all — even some of those mysterious "normal users." An interesting, useful and exciting experience, as my interests have me rarely interacting with normal users.

[Psumi]

I don't frequent or visit the website much, but here's mine:

http://www.madisonlinux.org/

[XubuRoxMySox]

My friend Amy and I visited the nearest LUG (60 miles away) only once, and it was pretty bad. Amy was actually frightened by the inappropriate attention paid to us by a couple of inebriated jerks at the meeting (not that I would have called it a meeting anyway). We got an unofficial letter of apology from a LUG rep, which included an offer to help us introduce Linux at the computer club at school, but we've found other sources of help and have not visited since, and have no plans to do so.

Maybe a "kid's LUG" in our future, closer to home. But the computer club at school has a Linux "demonstration computer" that has surprised a lot of kids with its speed and ease (currently running Linux Mint). The geekier kids like it but are disappointed about having to use Wine for the games they like.

-Robin

[samalex]

My friend Amy and I visited the nearest LUG (60 miles away) only once, and it was pretty bad. Amy was actually frightened by the inappropriate attention paid to us by a couple of inebriated jerks at the meeting (not that I would have called it a meeting anyway). We got an unofficial letter of apology from a LUG rep, which included an offer to help us introduce Linux at the computer club at school, but we've found other sources of help and have not visited since, and have no plans to do so.

Maybe a "kid's LUG" in our future, closer to home. But the computer club at school has a Linux "demonstration computer" that has surprised a lot of kids with its speed and ease (currently running Linux Mint). The geekier kids like it but are disappointed about having to use Wine for the games they like.

-Robin

Yeah, unfortunately there's no rhyme or reason to how some LUGs function. Any group of people can meet-up and call themselves a LUG. I wish there was some national group that helped organize community LUG's or even users groups of all sorts related to FOSS.

I know even our group has had some rocky meetings with unruly people attending, but lately it's been really smooth and hopefully welcoming to new users.

Sam

[markbuntu]

I would go to local lug meetings but they are during the week which is extremely inconvenient for me. Sometimes I go to local linux installfests which are on weekends.