On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 11:06 PM, Charles MacDonald <cmacd [ at ] zeusprune [ dot ] ca> wrote:
> On 12-03-23 02:20 PM, Jean-Francois Messier wrote:
>> As it was stated previously in this thread, there is no single location
>> that will please everyone. Ottawa-Gatineau is a large area. ......
>> Another idea, is that we pick locations in different places, sometime
>> more on the west, sometime more on the east of Ottawa. But I realize
>> this requires more time and efforts from the board, managing each
>> meeting location individually.
>
> I should put in my two cents worth as well. To have a physical meeting,
> requires that there be some folks who are interested enough to overcome
> whatever barriers are in their way of attending.
>
+1
Honestly, I don't really care where the location is. For me, if the
topic is interesting enough or a GPG key-signing event is going on (I
have to drive to MTL soon for a Debian key-sign), that is enough
motivation for me to jump in my car and drive.
My vote, pick the 3 top locations and everybody vote on them.
Regardless of the winner, I am offering up my services to set up an
Asterisk box with audio and video conferencing support. Assuming we
can get access to a VM / bare metal machine to set up it up on.
> Since we are spread out in a city that is so big that we have more cows
> than people, (thank you Mike Harris) it is likely that no one physical
> location will be suitable to more than half of the interested folks. It
> is even more likly when we consider that a lot of the folks who are
> close to OCLUG are from the Bike all year, use transit, down-town cliff
> dweller Group, while others are suburban high-tech folks who have so
> many time commitments that they even get their breakfast in their car.
>
> I am a Stittsvillan, and so as far as I am concerned Merivale Road is in
> the Far East and requires an epic hazard fought journey to visit. :)
> (which explains my absence at OCLUG since the long ago times when the
> Legendary Andrew Hutton ran Achilles Net
>
> SO LETS TURN THE QUESTION AROUND :)
>
> How can we make the meetings worth the effort to attend.
>
> Beside socializing, (vital for any organization of this type)
>
> {This is not a trivial question, the folks running the Linux Symposium,
> perhaps the most important Linux even in Canada, are basically asking
> the same questions.}
>
>
> Are we
>
> - Trying to get folks to switch from Windos to Ubuntu?
> - trying to get our managers to use decent software at work?
> - Trying to make the world a safe place for Linux (and BSD And ETC>)
> - Trying to solve our day to day problems
> - Trying to learn to be a better Programmer
> - Trying to get skills that will make us more employable.
> - Tying to prove we have those skills.
> - Trying to become the worlds best Kernel hacker
> - Trying to enlist high school and University computer students to
> become involved in fixing bugs in teh software we use.
>
> <That is the list I could think of for potential motivations>
>
> Depending on what is the motivation for a given meeting the ideal
> location may change. Even the economics of holding the meeting may
> change. If the purpose of the meeting is something that a business
> owner feels that it would be worthwhile ot support, meeting rooms with
> coffee and doughnuts will magically appear.
>
> As far as places we can meet for free, the continuing clamp down on
> Public sector budgets has made it much more difficult to get free
> meeting space. I can recall going to various meetings at places liek
> NRC on Sussex, and various museums - I suspect that they are all no
> lobger offered. One club I used to belong to used the Meeting room at
> the Ottawa Citizen , but again I don't knwo if that is still offered. I
> suspect that High Schools and community centers are also on a pay as you
> go bassis.
>
> The idea location should have both Transit way access, free parking (or
> at least not tricky inexpensive pay parking near the venue.) And also
> Bike pathway availability .
>
> BUT depending on teh meeting purpose, a less than Ideal location may
> still draw out the hard core Geeks, while you may need to do far more to
> interest casual computer users to switch from the junk that comes on
> their new computer.
--
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