[TriLUG] META - TriLUG Venue (was Re: Code of Conduct)

[Tanner Lovelace]

On 8/13/07, Nick Goldwater <trilug at dogstar1.com> wrote:

> In that case I humbly suggest moving the venue back to RTP. In this way
>  the Durham/Chapel Hill crowd could be better represented. I have also
> wondered about the association of TriLUG and RedHat. Almost makes it
> seem like a RedHat users group. Please realize the only meeting I have
> made since the move from  RTI has been last weeks meeting on Fedora...

Nick,

Since I was the SC chairman when TriLUG changed venues and moved
to it's current location, let me attempt to answer this question as best
I know how.

It is my opinion that one of TriLUG's greatest strengths, something that
has kept it strong for many years now, is that it's monthly meetings have
been extremely regular.  Every 2nd Thursday of the month at 7pm you can
be assured there will be a TriLUG meeting.  And, for the last 2.5 years,
you can be assured where that meeting will be.  Before those 2.5 years,
for 4-5 years you could be assured where the meeting would be.  This
gives TriLUG *stability*.  You can always count on where and when the
meetings will be.

Now, when we moved from RTI to Red Hat it was because we had spent
over a year at beyond maximum capacity at our RTI location.  Every single
month we had standing room only.  Something had to give.  We looked
around at many places where we could move to and the main restrictions
we put on a new place were that

1. It had to have a lot of space
2. It had to be EXTREMELY stable
3. It had to be free (since all our money goes towards the monthly
pizza and drinks
    and we don't charge people to get into our meetings)

That cut down dramatically the number of places we could use.  Jason Tower
came up with the Red Hat meeting space after talking with Greg DeKoenigsberg
and it fit all that criteria.  Still, I was very much against it at
the beginning for
two reasons:

1. It moved the meeting location from a location central to the Triangle
2. The appearance that we would be a "Red Hat User Group".

On the first point, it was pointed out to me that many members from the far side
of Raleigh had been going to the RTI location and would welcome a move closer
to them and that Red Hat was at the very least on the western side of Raleigh.
So, on that account, there are at least as many people on the other side of
town that prefer the Red Hat location as those on the other side of town that
prefer the RTI one.  So, location is a wash.

On the second point, we made it very clear that while we were extremely grateful
to Red Hat for the meeting space (and we are!) that TriLUG was an all inclusive
group and we would not favor Red Hat over any other distro in our meetings.  I
believe we proved that by during the first year inviting Jeff Waugh of
(then) Ubuntu
to come talk with us and by basically doing what we'd always been done.   Red
Hat, to it's credit, has been perfectly fine with this and I like to
think that the
Linux/FOSS tent is big enough that things like this should not be used
to divide us.

So, that's why we meet at our current location.

However, I would like to point out that our current Steering Committee has
taken note of the fact that our meeting location is not as central as it used
to be and they are responding to that by adding extra meetings on the other
side of the Triangle.  I think this is a great idea!  We have yet to
see if TriLUG
is big enough to support more than one meeting/month, but I my hope is that
it is.  I also like that they are adding extra meetings and not moving
the location
of our regular monthly meeting so that we, in my opinion, lose the
stability we've
worked so hard to achieve.

Anyway, I hope that helps explain a bit about why we meet where we do.

Cheers,
Tanner

-- 
Tanner Lovelace
clubjuggler at gmail dot com
http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
(fieldless) In fess two roundels in pale, a billet fesswise and an
increscent, all sable.