To: Hamlug From: Wayne Hardy Re: Meeting space and the advantages of the Library
Since, at the January meeting, we may be discussing meeting locations I want to throw these ideas out in advance so people can think about them. When the discussion came up about an alternate meeting space I saw that people didn't realize how valuable the Library really is for reasons which may not be obvious at first. Let me mention some of those: 1. The Library is a public facility. People in the community know where it is and how to get there. When it comes to attracting new people, they are a more likely to come to a public meeting space than a private address that they never heard of before. 2. If we bring in outside speakers, they can find the library more easily. And the public is much more likely to come to a public lecture at a public facility. If you ever try to start a group and get people to a meeting, or try to promote a public event, you begin to appreciate these things. 3. There are issues of safety, liability and insurance, should there be an accident at the meeting location. The library, I'm sure, has already addressed these things. At a different location HAMLUG could incur liability or may be required to have its own insurance. Not only don't we have a budget for things like insurance but we don't have an official officer or representative to sign those kinds of papers. That might require registration as a business or a corporation. Things like a Constitution, By-Laws, Board of Directors, Incorporation and bank accounts are a whole different technology. Personally, I'd rather stick to Linux, for now. We're not ready to develop that kind of structure yet. 4. The library will be available for years to come and that could give us a very stable home base. I know of one group that has been meeting there consistently for 15 years. That kind of stability not only gains points with the Library (scheduling preference and whatnot) but it builds credibility with the community. Meeting at someone's business depends on our good relationship with the business owner and the business staying where it is, both of which are far more variable than the Library. The Library will likely ALWAYS be open to the public for groups to meet because that is part of it's purpose. Not so with a private business which may change it's policy from year to year (or quicker). 5. Meeting in a community Library gives us a certain status in the community. It makes us look more like we're a part of the community and more legitimate. This could be very much in our favor as time goes on. 6. Then there's the issue of bringing equipment in and out of the building and the concerns of the business that what we're taking belongs to us, not them. If something is broken or missing we're the natural suspects. This can become a sticky issue. At the Library this is is not much of a concern since we are not near any of the library's own equipment. I'm sure the library has worked through these issues, since they have outside groups meeting there all the time, which may be partially why the meeting rooms are located where they are. 7. The library has an LCD projector that we can use. This is not to be underestimated since they cost 10-20 thousand bucks to buy. If we break it we are less likely to be held liable since it is public property and used by many public groups. If we break the business's projector we may be in deep soup. 8. If we use the business's internet connection we run the risk of our experiments causing the business to look like it's snooping networks. Not good for them. We may want to run a web server for an evening or stream some multi-media for a demo. I don't know if this will fly with the business's ISP. And if we have many attendees on a LAN hooked to their company's network or their internet connection it's hard to control what happens. If the LUG has it's own ISP connection we don't risk embarrassing the business with our networking mistakes. Not something to take lightly in this day and age. Best to consider these things in advance. When it comes to networking we are not a passive group. For us it's not just a connection for web browsing. We'll likely be doing more sophisticated things. I wouldn't want our group to annoy the business's ISP with our experiments. For these reasons, access to the company's network and internet connection may not be as attractive as it first seems. It could actually be more of a liability than an advantage. Best to consider these things in advance. Now, having said all that, I'm not against meeting elsewhere. I just don't think people realize how valuable the Library space really is in some less tangible ways. It's not just a meeting room with parking. There is more to it that is not obvious at first. I think those with more experience organizing groups will appreciate this. This is why I prefer using a second location in ADDITION to the Library, not instead of it. An alternate location may have advantages but we shouldn't give up what we have without serious consideration. The group could be giving up something far more valuable than they realize. My suggestion is to keep using the library as we build our relationship with the library and the community. Let's look at another space in addition to that (not instead of) and try it with some side meetings. Now here are some advantages to have a second, additional, meeting location: 1. As we get more organized it may be useful to have board meetings, planning, or business meetings (officer's meetings) apart from the regular monthly meetings so the business doesn't take time away from our main focus which is Linux Technology. We might need a secondary meeting space for that. 2. There might be offshoots of the group who want to focus on some particular area that not everyone is interested in and they might have enough interest and energy to have separate meetings. That's how SIG's emerge from a main user group. These take extra meeting space and times. The business location may have equipment or networking available that lends itself to things we want to do, if we work it out so we don't get in their way. Such as: having our own web server or VPN host that is online 24/7. And it may also be possible that we could assist them with our Linux/Unix knowledge base. So... I'm interested to see what's up with this other location but I feel strongly we should hold on to the library for our main meetings. Wayne Hardy
