Seeing as we now have a new year of SLUG with the election of new officials--I thought it might be time for me to air some ideas I had about our monthly meetings.. and see what comes out of it..
Problem:.. Newbies are bewildered by new/advanced talks.. Oldies are bored by newbie/tutorial talks.. Consequently, we have something sort of in the middle, not really catering for everyone all that well.. Idea:.. Why not have two streams? Like we do at AUUG/Linux.conf.au conferences..! First part of the SLUG meeting will be as usual, Announcements, Questions, Trivia.. Then have a break Then run two talks in two rooms.. (Not sure if this is possible..).. 1st track being the new and advanced talks as per usual.. 2nd track being newbies/tutorials talks.. With the newbies talks, I have a few ideas.. I feel they should be rostered 6 MONTHS ahaid (Yes, and I mean 6 months).. Select two individuals to host the talk, Primary, and a Secondary (in case primary is killed,maimed,drunk, whatever).. Topics should be BASIC newbies tutorials.. (Like the stuff we used to get from Peter Chubb in the "Golden days of slug".. Ie.. File Permissions, File Structures, Shared Groups, Authentication, Passwords, Basic Security, networking, Firewalling.. We could perhaps get together a bunch of 30 minute tutorials, already prepared, with slides.. and just assign^H^H^H^H^Hvolunteer them to people to do the talk.. Another way we could get speakers to do these talks, is, there are quite a few companies/organisations doing Linux training now.. They are always looking out for promotional activities.. How about, we get them to do a 30 minute tutorial, based on one of their training courses, in return for them being able to promote their training course.. (Say at the first half of the meeting).. I think this could be a good way to get speakers, and keep it going throughout the year.. Then, we need to promote these "tutorials" in advance, and people will then make the effort to get to them, as they can lock them into their timetable well in advance. Thoughts, Comments, Flames? -- Anthony Rumble - Managing Director EverythingLinux.com.au - The Alternative Operating System Store LinuxHelp.com.au - Support,Training,Development,Consulting Phone: 0500 500 368 Direct 02-9712-1799 Fax 02-9712-3977 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
