On Fri, 2004-03-26 at 11:53, Carl Cerecke wrote:
> How many "MS Windows" meetings are held in Chch? (Ones organised by the 
> users only, not some Corporate)
Well, most medium-sized computer-equipped offices function as self-help
user groups for Windows. It's the small businesses with only one
computer that suffer ...

> There is, I think, an apple users group 
> that meets regularly. But that only helps to prove my point :-)

Apple Users Group of Canterbury meets monthly, has a turn-out of around
50 people each meeting, a paid-up membership of more than double that, a
monthly newsletter, a 'net-connected bulletin board system that gateways
with a very large Australian Apple Users Group, a public mailing list
and a healthy bank balance assisted by careful applications to grants
authorities for things like VGA Projectors, &c.

However, helping to prove Carl's point, it is very much a collection of
people trying to _use_ their machines, not particularly to understand
the inner workings.

> Any member of this list is free to organise their own Linux-related 
> meeting and advertise it on the list. No one will stop you. Before 
> anybody laments the loss of public Linux meetings, they should organise 
> at least a handful.

There seems to be a perception that because "there is a Users Group",
that it should have some responsible people to "organise things". But we
know that's not true ... 

Anyway, how does a beginner organise a beginner's help session? I've
seen mutually-reinforcing beginners try to learn things, they end up
like Skinner's pidgeons, reinforcing all sorts of odd ideas. I don't
like to see that ...

-jim

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