Modified Title: Location of BayLISA Meetings

Fri Oct 14 08:51:01 PDT 2005

On Thu, Oct 13, 2005 at 09:43:06AM -0700, Jennifer Davis wrote:
> 
> So some options:
> 
> -More meetings per month, but sprinkled around the Bay area?  Some North, 
> some South, some East, some Mid?  I know I couldn't make it to all of 
> these meetings, but if I can coordinate the folks to actually be present 
> at the meetings we can definitely fill the speaking slots!  We are getting 
> requests for presenting more and more, and at this point the pipeline is 
> full up to Aprilish (up to Feb confirmed, and multiples offered up to 
> April).
> -Rotate the one meeting around multiple places across the year?
> -One night, multiple meetings across the Bay area?  Again same stipulation 
> as 1..

A thought: Do all meetings/speakers hold equal interests for all members?
Are members more likely to be attending based on something being directly
related to the type of problems they face, or being outside the usual work
mode?

I'd be perfectly happy to leave a regular meeting every month as is to
avoid confusing or annoying the regulars, and perhaps trying out some other
spot for additionals.  If we can get a decent crowd going, even if it's
not as large as the south bay folk, we can at least have a better sample
to ask questions of and refine answers for.

As to timing, the same night ensures the same sample (i.e. eliminates
scheduling external conflicts among those who "might" go), but does
force people to choose which speaker, if they can go at all that night.

> We _are_ BayLISA.  It's not meant to be South BayLISA.  I brought up the 
> point of location because I've heard multiple queries about having 
> BayLISA in different areas, and there is also this notion that at some 
> point in the past we had consistently more people at a more northern 
> location.  It sounds like we have a strong base of South BayLISA attendees 
> that are consistent.  Do we have a possible attendee base in other areas?

I'd think we do, though as we know it can be difficult to build that into
an actual attendee base.

> So do I have some volunteers who want to be the meeting hosts/coordinators 
> in some alternate areas?  I'll talk to Bill separately, as having a 
> Peninsula BayLISA meeting (even if it's just a one off) would be a good 
> data point.

I personally need to see what resources I can help bring to bear for the SF
area.  Currently on a primary oncall rotation with lots of evening traffic
so will have to see if I can support any meeting I commit to around
performing those oncall duties.   If I arrange anything outside my
building, I'd need not only power and internet but a room where I could
yell intot he phone without distracting anyone :) At work, well, I'll
have to see WHAT I can arrange there.

> We don't want to detract from any area.. quality, people, whatever. 
> Right now we get a good number in the audience and I want to maintain 
> that.  We are still figuring out good food quantities, but we do the 
> sodas, and we know what to expect month to month somewhat.

Agreed.  I miss being able to go to the South Bay events, but they were fine
the last time I was able to... no need to rm the binaries with the
tmpfiles.  