----- Original Message ----- From: "Tarquin Mills" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [ql-users] Quanta Workshop in Norwich
> > Geoff Wicks wrote: > [snip] > > I still think it important that we have a Norwich show. You have a > > started a user group in the area, which is quite an achievement these > > days and this deserves recognition from the rest of the QL community. > To say I have created a group is sadly an over statement, in the main it > is just myself and Arnold Clarke who meet twice a month. I would love to > get more members, in fact I would like to do something to help the QL in > general after having wasted all this year so far doing politics. Given the > size of our group I see two options > > 1. Move the Cambridge-show/radio-rally (which was February this year) > to Norwich to serve East Anglia. Have it as a low key affair, > apologises if I am treading on peoples toes. > 2. Hold the Quanta AGM (or some other event) that will draw people in, > to Norwich. We do not have experience of holding events, my mother > (who will help) needs convincing we can, she also wants to know > what entering a bid entails. I think we have to separate two things here. One is your capability of holding an event. This is not really a QL thing, but what experience you have of holding events in general. Think of possible experiences in, say, the political sphere. The other thing is if there are a sufficient number of QL users in your catchment area to make a QL show worthwhile. Firstly don't be too worried if the East Anglian group has only two really active members, as it can be enough to seed something bigger. People are often unrealistic about the present size of the QL community and it is good to occasionally confronted them with the reality. Last year I shocked several people by suggesting that the sales of one of my commercial programs would probably be no more than 10 copies. So far it has sold 8. I know other people who have produced specialist products which have sold less than 10 copies. This does not mean it was not worthwhile. I hope you won't be offended if I describe Norwich as "a bit of a backwater", but I was suprised to discover it is 4 hours by train from Derby. Balanced against this is that it is easy to "sell" Norwich through both the city itself and the surrounding area, so that it would make an interesting weekend from the non-QL viewpoint. What seems to be missing is some idea of how many QL-ers there are in East Anglia. At one time QUANTA prided itself in having its data base so organised that via post codes it could produce this type of list quite easily. I don't know whether they still can, but it might be worth asking. (It also has to be said that QUANTA membership may no longer be an accurate guide to QL numbers in a region. Many people left QUANTA following a nasty internal dispute in 1996 - 97.) All I can say that at one time the QL had an active following in the West and East Midlands so that a Norwich venue would not seem totally inappropriate. It may be worthwhile to get information from QUANTA about the number of members in the area and also to sound out their AGM plans. I think you may be right in suggesting you need some extra attraction to bring people to Norwich. Geoff Wicks.
