Re: [Hampshire] Meeting comments

On Sat, 13 Jan 2007, Adrian Bridgett wrote:

> What did everyone think?

I certainly enjoyed the meeting.

> This applies to everyone really - whether you have been to any North
> Hampshire meetings or not. "Too far to travel", "see SurreyLUG", "too
> crowded" - any and all comments are fair game - this was after all an
> experiment to see what people thought.

It did seem a little crowded but not overly so and as Red Hat are moving
office sometime soon it'll all depend on what the facilities are like at
the new office whether future meetings there would be crowded or not.

I think it would have helped to know which room the talks were going to be
in when we arrived, that way there might have been a more even split
between the two rooms from the start.

> How about compared to Southampton?

Personally I prefer the meetings at ECS, especially when we have access to
both rooms there. They don't have same facilities in terms of computers to
use and even it you bring your own machine its nice not to have to bring a
monitor as well so the equipment at RedHat is an advantage, but still I
prefer the layout at Southampton.

I fully undertsand why Red Hat had a closed door policy and people had to
ring the bell to get in, but that coupled with the lack of any Surrey LUG
signs (at least that I saw) and the layout of the offices meant the
meeting probably wasn't as first time visitor friendly as Hants meetings,
at least IMO, though knowing half the people there maybe I'm not a good
person to judge that properly.

> Would people like to have more joint meetings? Or stay seperate?

I wouldn't have any problems with more joint meetings, but I do wonder
what real purpose they serve... I think it's an excellent idea to foster
good relations with other local LUGs and Surrey did a grand job of
welcoming us, but I also can't see any reason why people from Hampshire
can't simply attend a Surrey LUG meeting without it being an "official"
joint meeting.

So as far as I can see the real question is given how close the Aldershot
meetings are to the Surrey meetings and the generally poorer attendance at
the Aldershot meetings is it worth holding a meeting at Aldershot on
months when there is a meeting at Red Hat.

I suspect that might be quite a contraversial question and I should say
that personally I don't have any problems with the Aldershot meetings, but
some others do seem to.

> What about timing - if we had joint meetings it would be best if one
> or other group shifted by a week to avoid having oddly spaced gaps
> between meetings.

I'm against this and I don't see any real issue with having oddly space
intervals. I can see it being a bit trickier to keep track of meetings if
they aren't on the same weekend each month, however I think this is out
weighed by the issue of clashing meetings.

Assuming Hants continues to alternate between Southern meetings and
Northern meetings I wouldn't want to hold half our meetings on the same
days as Surrey forcing those people who might be interested in attending
both to choose between them.

> Any things they did well that we should copy (I'm afraid "free coffee"
> isn't on the cards!) or conversely things that we do well that perhaps
> we should suggest to them?

Well as has been mentioned already having the equipment at Red Hat was
great, but probably not something Hants can easily copy.

The lack at WiFi at Red Hat was a disadvantage, but possibly easily
remedied. I did ask one of the Red Hat people there (sorry I forget who)
if WiFi was available and he said no, but if somebody had a WiFi AP we
could set something up by linking it to one of the classroom wired
connections. IIRC Hants has several APs in our network equipment boxes so
it would be worth bring one along to any future joint meeting.

I also have to admit that personally I missed the name badges, especially
as there were more people there I didn't know than there usally are at
Hants meetings.


Andy