[GLLUG] What To Do About Low Meeting Attendance?

[Clay Dowling]

From Ann Arbor poor Flint the current location is ideal while keeping it in the Lansing area. But I  won't be coming because I  am usually in the air on a Thursday evening, coming back from Des Moines.

My recommendation is to avoid bars, and look for a good place to present. Our attendance was better when we were dying presentations. 

I  am part of a group in Des Moines that does a weekly presentation. We do not restrict ourselves to Linux,  although because we all work for the same company and we use Linux there it is a common focus.

But consider that a presentation doesn't need to be a formal presentation. Often we just do a quick five minute stand up on a personal project and q&a follows.

Clay 
------ Original message------
From: Richard Houser
Date: Fri, Sep 5, 2014 7:05 PM
To: Tom McArthur;
Cc: GLLUG Mailing List;
Subject:Re: [GLLUG] What To Do About Low Meeting Attendance?

My situation is similar to Tom's.  I'm full time work and grad school atm, as soon as that's out of the way in the Spring, I expect to be back around more like I used to.

That said, I live down in ER, so the location is far from ideal.  If moved from the east end of town, I suspect you will lose the people that occasionally trek up from Ann Arbor and/or Flint.

It might work better for two alternating locations (even with the associated issues of confusion -- which could probably be handled with an automated email or something) if there are substantial numbers of people commuting from other locations.  If we met in Mason one meeting a month or so, I think I could get a new member or two up from Jackson, for instance.  I could probably sneak a couple more meetings in here or there myself.

Anyone else think it's worth a survey of where people are coming from?


On Fri, Sep 5, 2014 at 2:50 PM, Tom McArthur <ThomasMcA at live.com> wrote:
My Linux t-shirts only generate "what's Linux?" questions. Or the occasional "Are you a MAC guy?"

Regarding the meetings, it is a bit of a drive coming from Jackson. That, and being busy with grad school and life in general.

Regarding a solution, maybe it would help if potential attendees knew how many people were planning on attending. Those "maybe"s might become "yes"s if they knew that the meeting was actually gonna happen. Is there some app or website where people could post their attendance plans? Something that the group could refer to when making their own decisions for an individual meeting.

Tom


On 09/05/2014 01:14 PM, frank.dolinar at comcast.net wrote:
Robert, 
   It's summer and people are traveling and doing other things.
   Regarding t-shirts...   you can wear them any where you want.   Might start conversations and get a few more people to show up to the meetings.
   ...my two cents...

Frank

 
From: "Robert Youngs Jr" <ryoungs at liquidweb.com>
To: linux-user at egr.msu.edu
Sent: Friday, September 5, 2014 1:07:37 PM
Subject: Re: [GLLUG] What To Do About Low Meeting Attendance?

I tried going to a meeting back in July and found no one.  I would definitely be interested in giving presentations, though I think meetings should be held in a more centralized location.

Not seeing anyone was a huge turnoff.

Robert
Sent from my iPhone

> On Sep 5, 2014, at 12:41 PM, Chick Tower <c.e.tower at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Last night, and the Thursday before, I was at Schuler Books for our weekly meeting.  I didn't see anybody else looking for a Linux meeting.  Granted, last week I was almost half an hour late, and it was just before the long weekend, but last night I was fifteen minutes early.
>
> Attendance has been falling off for years now.  What can we do to increase attendance?  I'm specifically asking you who would be interested in attending meetings, but I want to encourage anyone with an idea to reply.
>
> Do we need to emphasize presentations again?  Should we have some grand project to work on, whether that be software, hardware, community service, classes, something for Penguicon?
>
> Do we need fewer meetings, such as twice a month?  Once a month?
>
> Do we need to publicize our meetings more widely, and try to recruit new members?
>
> Do we need to have meetings on another night of the week?  Saturday meetings?  We've tried Saturdays in the past without much luck, but if that's what people would like now....
>
> Do we need a different venue?  If so, is it just because of the geographic location, or do we need someplace more quiet or somehow better able to conduct presentations?  Or do we need to go to a bar occasionally?
>
> Please let's have some ideas to increase attendance.  I don't want the group to die out.  Where else am I going to wear all my Linux and FOSS t-shirts?
> --
>
>                               Chick
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