Anyway, I'm speaking as one of the "oldtimers" in CLUG. I still recall emailing Jeff about CLUG to find out about membership/etc and getting a response that read, "We have a lot of beurocracy. Just show up and you're a member." Or words almost exactly like that. (Jeff probably doesn't remember that.) Back then we were meeting in the "Atrium of the EH Crandell Building" at SAIT. We had a few rather large crowds in that room but things quickly dwindled. (IIRC that was around January 1999).
Anyway, I digress. We had presentations when we had larger groups and we met in coffee shops with smaller groups. But a few of us kept things going through the lean times. We made a few half hearted attempts to get organized but most of those fizzled as the folks interested in doing so largely drifted off or disappeared.
During all of this time, the meetings, whether there was a presentation or not, always broke before the end of the time slot and switched to a general discussion type setting where folks would splinter off into groups and have discussions about whatever topic was interesting to them. There was usually upwards of half an hour for just that at the end of the meetings before everyone got kicked out of the room. This allowed folks with complex questions to get answers and allowed advanced types to socialize and so on.
I think, perhaps, that in our headlong rush to make CLUG newbie friendly, we have completely forgotten the social aspect of it. I think it has become TOO structured in the meetings. There is almost never any time left over at the end of the meeting to simply sit around and BS with other folks one knows. Note that this discussion time is not necessarily unfriendly to newbies either.
As the group gets larger at a meeting, the proportion of people interested in a particular question in a general Q&A diminishes greatly. I think that with a larger group, the general Q&A session should probably be greatly modified.
For this, or something like it, to work, it requires someone who is willing to wade in and seize control of the group if it appears to be degenerating into anarchy. We need everyone to understand that they do not need to have their say instantly but wait until all the breakout time occurs. It also requires saying, "Folks, time for questions is up. Feel free to circulate and ask questions of folks if yours wasn't answered this time."
I think, perhaps, the strictly formal approach that seems to have been developing is not quite right for CLUG; it's too structured. Perhaps a less formal approach would work, where the meeting is broken up with a statement something like "We'll now have a general social time. If anyone has any questions, don't be afraid to ask someone; if they don't know, they may be able to point you at someone who does."
There is one problem with this which is a bit harder to solve. Some people do not feel comfortable approaching strangers with questions. Of course, there is a similar problem with the "group Q&A" session: some people do not feel comfortable approaching a large group with questions. In the "social time" idea, some folks could just mill around and if they see someone who seems out of their element, stop and introduce themselves and get a discussion going. In fact, this did happen in the olden days.
I would also like to point out that this idea does not prevent the idea of having presentations or what have you either, as long as the presentations are kept within a reasonable margin of their scheduled length. That is, a one hour presentation should not devolve into a two hour ramble. Once the presentation is finished, I think a fairly short Q&A session with the group as a whole should occur but any questions with long answers or which are really beyond the scope of the presentation should be deferred until after the group breaks for "social time". Then, the presenter is free to conduct whatever discussion they desire without boring everyone else.
This next idea is more of a blue sky thing rather than something that I expect is realistic. It would be nice if the 10PM "you must be out of the room" time could be moved back. Unfortunately, this would require that someone be in charge until that later time and is probably unworkable. Even having somewhere else to adjourn to that is NOT a bar or restaurant or what have you would serve this purpose for folks that want to have a longer discussion in a relatively quiet setting.
I think we do need to continue having presentations. I understand that the problem is getting folks to do presentations and also coming up with topics. First, on the subject of topics. I think there were great ideas on how to come up with topcis at the meeting. Having a place to submit topcis to is a great idea. So is watching the list to see if there's a topic you want to (or can) present. Similarly, a "social time" discussion may turn into an idea for a presentation.
On the subject of presenters, I think if we had a list of topics looking for presentations and someone was more in our face about that list (where it is, what's on it), we might get more volunteers. Similarly, if someone knows of an individual that would possibly be able to do a presentation on such a topic, some sort of one-on-one outreach might yield a presentation. Having an executive member tasked with this probably makes a great deal of sense.
That's my $2 on the subject. (It seems too much to simply value at $.02.)
-- William Astle
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