T.Meyarivan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> the date is fixed and no speakers as yet.. Mary, Having been there, seen it all I am repeating my suggestions which couldn't be implemented while I was there due to absence of a formal society. How to get a regular stream of speakers for the longer term who have worked on their presentations and technology behind it? The suggestion I repeat below LUG as a professional body of importance for technologists(and others) promoting Free and Open Source Software should invite ( send postal mailers ) to the heads of Educational Institutions(or heads of Computer Science Depeartments) in LUG's area of influence and a little beyond, offering to pay speakers ( students!!) honorarium ( to cover travel expenses and a small party back home ) and issue a certificate ( issued by Secretary/Joint Secretary of LUG in Delhi ) for speaking on topics related to themes of the monthly meets. LUG needs to make it a defined and written down process of the society to offer a uniform honorarium to students spending time to prepare technical topics delivering the presentations, once the presentations (papers!!) are accepted. Each themed meet can be made a competitive event where double the honorarium can be paid to the best speaker and a corresponding certificate stating the same provided.( criteria can be defined for basing the best speaker on audience/judges inputs ). Even the judges can be invited from amongst the lecturers/professors in the educational institutions( NGOs!!) and issued offical Linux Delhi certificates. This needs a bit of long term planning as in:- 1. Decide the themes for the next 4 ILUGD meets 2. Invite speakers for the topics under meet themes for the meets to be held two months from now. 3. Send out postal mailers to head of computer science departments inviting audience for technical topics being presented ( might be a good idea to provide certificates or other takeaways related to the talks to the attendees too ) The essence of doing it right is planning and providing sufficient time and incentive to potential speakers to prepare 2-3 months in advance. I know many other LUGs do not do this as they are more successful in regularly involving students as volunteers and perhaps even a steady stream of star speakers. If we can't invite the stars we must promote a new generation of FOSS champions. The best of these stars can then be "invited" to speak for ILUGD at bigger fora. All this should not prevent no more than a single regular "old" speaker from amongst the "regular" LUG guys(and gals!! sorry Mary! ) to speak to the audience once in a while at the meets. Most importantly I am not volunteering to help implement this as I am too far away from the scene of all the action however I can always criticise people who do any actual work and watch from the sidelines to have my fun. Cheers!!! -Tarun _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- [email protected] http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
