[clug] Beginner CLUG [WAS: Re: The harsh realities of CLUG]

[Lana Brindley]

Thanks for starting this conversation, Paul. As always, you've hit some very
relevant points. I won't respond to them here, mostly because most people on
this list know my opinion anyway. What I would like to address is the new
tack this conversation has taken, about a series of beginner classes (or
similar).

Let me tell you a story ...

About a year ago, if memory serves, I helped out at an InstallFest. It may
or may not have been the Software Freedom Day event, but that's not
particularly relevant to the story. Around this time, I was also in the
first initial flush of getting the Girl Geek Dinners up and running. It was
very exciting, but it also made me realise that the grand majority of people
(male and female) working in technology in this town neither use Linux, nor
give a shit about it.

There is, however, a small but statistically significant group of people who
are either dabbling in Linux but are not brave enough to show up to a CLUG
meeting, or wanting to try Linux (mostly due to a certain level of
pissed-offedness around Windows, as per usual) but have no idea where to
start. Of course, being at an InstallFest around the time these thoughts
were going through my head meant I chatted to lots of people about it -
n00bs and gurus alike.

I started developing an idea ... what if we were to hold a series of short
courses, where we could cover the basics of choosing a distro, getting it
installed, networking basics, printing, etc etc. We could hold the sessions
on a weeknight, maybe six sessions in a course, have a speaker on each topic
and a small panel of "experts" (ie: people who have been using Linux for
some time AKA CLUG members) there to field questions and provide assistance.
Kind of like a six-session InstallFest. Everyone I told about it thought it
was great! I held a poll on my blog, got some conversation started around
it, and was really starting to feel the love. So I set up a blog[0], and a
mailing list[1].

And then I made a fatal mistake. I asked for ideas, suggestions, volunteers,
and even donations. *gasp*. Well, of course it fizzled. It fizzled a hell of
a lot faster than it sparked in the first place. So the blog, the mailing
list, and the idea, have all languished since then. Gathering dust in a
neglected corner of the interwebs where ideas that were never quite born go
to die.

As much as I would really like to garner some of this enthusiasm and inject
it into my little project, I can't help but wonder that when that email goes
out again (the one that goes "Hey, who wants to help out?!"), will the same
rapid desertion occur again?

Discuss.

Lana

[0] http://jumpstartlinux.blogspot.com/
[1] http://groups.google.com.au/group/jumpstartlinux




-- 
Cheers! Lana

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's
only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call
them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
 - Richard Feynman

-----------------------------------------------
http://lanabrindley.blogspot.com
-----------------------------------------------

Please avoid sending me Word, Powerpoint or Windows Media attachments.

See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html for more
information.

------------------------------------------------