As much as I enjoy eating out, the venue was too noisy for a meeting. If there's a meeting, it would be good to be able to hear folks. It was difficult to hear people talking only 2 or 3 people away. My 2 cents. What I was able to hear was both interesting and informative, and occasionally amusing :)
On 2/24/20 2:57 PM, Ben Scott wrote: > On Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 10:00 AM Ken D'Ambrosio <k...@jots.org> wrote: >> Hey, all. I'm deeply, deeply sorry I missed the fun. Tow truck finally >> got me to Amherst around 7:00, and I still had to walk home from the >> shop. But enough about me: I'm curious how things went! Was a good >> time had by all? > Everyone was so devastated by your inability to attend, they all > left after learning of the news. > >> Should we consider getting together again on a regular >> (probably quarterly) basis, maybe with an actual agenda, etc.? > My personal opinion (and not that of any other person, organization, > or entity) has long been that regular meetings should come before > formal meetings. It seems like people get caught up in the desire for > topics or speakers or other formalism, and seeing an inability to > sustain such, give up. My thought is that if a community is built and > nourished, things like topics and speakers will follow naturally, as > people discuss, discover, and want to do more. But if there is no > community, the opportunity for that synthesis is greatly diminished. > (Others have theorized that a lack of formal structure means there is > nothing to build on. So maybe I'm wrong.) > > So I would suggest picking a date and recurrence interval and > getting that going. > > Perhaps at the next meeting, the question of topics of interest > could be the discussed. (See? Already the synthesis occurs.) > > One concern I do have is: It is often difficult to hear and be heard > in a restaurant venue. It certainly was the other night. At the same > time, it seems like food and drink are an appealing aspect for many. > I know in the past, venues with a quiet corner or room, such that the > celebration and the discussion could be colocated, or relocated to > with a short walk, were sought, with some success. Perhaps that is > still a possibility? > > -- Ben > _______________________________________________ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ > _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/