q u a s i wrote: [snip]
Of which we have a minor success at #1. #2 and #3 remain unfulfilled. In the last few meet I have been to there have been a high percentage of newbies. But they dont turn up for the next meet. Shows that they do not get what they expected form the meet. Other like me go to meet folks I know. Spending half a day to meet some folks for a few minutes is expensive.
I agree with quasi, er.. q u a s i, here. This was my first ILUG-Bom meet, and to be frank I was bored... More so after being through the fun that we have in ILUG-Delhi meets (http://www.linux-delhi.org/). I hope that this was not the way the average ILUG-Bom meeting goes.
Why dont we have more informal meets with a lot more FUN in them? Order some food. Eat. Drink. Discuss stuff. People will come only if they can enjoy the experience. For me, I did NOT enjoy the last few meets which were extremely drab will all of us sitting done in some classroom trying not to nodd off. Instead of having seminars and talks we should aim at "informal discussions". Get rid of the protocol and the politics. If we collect some small amount for the food and drink I guess we could separate a small percentage of it for other LUG activities and expenses.
I mentioned this at the meet as well: the pizzas, fruit beer, chai, coffee, snakes (snacks, for the uninitiated) have been the mainstay, if I may say so, of the ILUG-Delhi meets. I know that is Delhi and this is Mumbai, different city, different people, but that is no reason to not have fun ;-)
Bottomline is, GLUG meets are boring. And we need to seriously look at this issue.
The point is: the difference between interacting through a mailing list and interacting in person is the amount of fun we can have. Informal gup-shup, exchanging war-stories, vi-emacs holy wars, and such are some of the things that can make a meeting a success. Some of the most enjoyable meets in Delhi have been at Dilli Haat--No computers, just people.
Of course we should have a healthy mix of talks, seminars, presentations as well, but my 2paisa says that this alone is not enough to make a /Meet/ successful.
Even the presentations and talks themselves can be made to be much more enjoyable and less sleep inducing, with a little effort from the speakers. Think of it as chatting with friends about your pet-project over a cup of chai, rather than giving a formal presentation in a corporate boardroom...
Just my 2p++ ;-)
Nice to be a part of ILUG-Bom!