First of all, thanks for specifically opening this topic up again.
One way of coping with additional work is to get more volunteer involvement. I would like to encourage the executive to not only solicit opinions, but to publicly solicit volunteer effort from the membership at large. If no volunteering occurs, that's another problem, but if the publicly asking for volunteer help does not occur, it can easily be confused with a "closed approach". For example, who says, that all meetings have to be organized by one and the same individual? Who says, that an individual volunteering to organize a particular meeting needs to be on the executive? Maybe an executive member makes sure, that each meeting has an organizer, and that they are doing ok. I have the sneaking suspicion, that quite a few members would happily commit to specific one time volunteering efforts. Yes, me too!
Some of my thoughts as a regular attendee:
* high attendee churn (i.e. people are attending for a while and then quitting) is either a warning sign, or it means that the group is only good for newbies.
* if the status quo prevails, I'll probably quietly drift off, just as others have... being vocal means, that I still have hope ...
* solid sign-up rates may not necessarily prove that everything is well - for example, what if the general Linux user count in the Calgary area goes up by 50% year over year, but CLUG sign-ups go up by only 10% - does that hint at a problem or not? (the numbers are purely for illustration - I have no idea what they really are)
* the monthly meetings do not all have to follow the same format - variety adds spice :)
* I really liked some of the previously mentioned ideas about "multi-tracking", since they would give more value to more people per meeting.
-- parallel presentations/discussions in different rooms (if logistically possible)
-- mini tradeshow / fair (many parallel demo areas in same room)
-- more discussions time rather than only presentation time (probably more reasonable when people split into several smaller groups)
-- if people miss something because of parallel events, repeat the really popular one's
* another specific meeting format for some meetings could be a "roundtable" with a moderator, like for example
-- roundable of email servers with 1-2 individuals for each of postfix, qmail, sendmail
-- roundtable of popular distro's
* make regular use of polls section of clug.ca to flesh out popular meeting topics / meeting events
* I personally find it a bit boring to hear the same somewhat longish intro to CLUG basics at every meeting. Could we make a printed handout for that information instead and jump quicker into the meat of a meeting? One double sided sheet could convey a lot of information and I can volunteer the printing of a few hundred copies of laser printing such a handout at zero cost to CLUG.
* ask the meeting content question more often on the mailing list, like for example (note the difference between presentation and discussion, since on some topics I would rather listen to someone who knows more than me, and on other topics I would like to exchange ideas with peers)
-- "what topic would you like to hear a presentation on?"
-- "what topic would you like to have a discussion with your peers from the group?"
* As lists of ideas evolve, clug.ca polls can sort out the most popular one's.
flame away :)
...Niels
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