Re: [Fsfe-uk] [Proposal] Mailing lists

[Brian Teeman]

On Thu, 23 Oct 2003, Telsa Gwynne wrote:

> 
> The situation is that there are quite a few Gnome people in the 
> UK, but we are lamentably bad at getting ourselves to shows. We
> never have time, transport, people, machines, goodies, and a plan 
> all at the same time. London is a long way for people and expensive 
> to reach.
> 
> It's a problem common to many groups, but other groups seem to 
> overcome it. We find ourselves casting about at a week's notice 
> saying "eep, there's a show, I can't make it, who can I think of 
> on IRC or whose mail I have who might be able to?" And then not 
> going, or sharing the Debian stand yet again, because Debian are 
> friendly like that (also, they have beer). We've also shared the 
> KDE stand at least once.
> 
> I think, frankly, most of us want someone else to do the organising
> of this logistical stuff, or at least to fund it. I am certainly
> hopeless at organising. I can't think of more than two Gnome people 
> I know who have a car, even. I have had my share of carrying computers 
> and monitors around on trains, and I really don't want to do that 
> any more. What we need is to find out how to get machines to shows 
> cheaply, whether local companies will do it (especially if we can 
> scrounge boxes and delivery of them), and so on. For example, at 
> LinuxTag a few years ago, the Gnome stand computers almost all came 
> from the RH Germany office, because several employees there were 
> going to attend on the RH stand anyway. So we borrowed a box or 
> two from their office, and someone turned up with a car and we 
> loaded them all up.
> 
> If we could do that sort of thing, rather than three of us
> arriving with our laptops or smallest computers on the train,
> that would help so much.


It is a shame that no-one from GNOME has been represented in the .Org 
Village at the last two Linux Shows. 

For the Birmingham show a space was booked and no-one turned up and for
the recent London show no response to the invitation to exhibit was ever
received.

At both of these Expos there were many people who were only too willing to
offer lifts, loan of equipment etc. They only had to be asked.

As the organiser of the .Org Village I arranged for the loan of PCs, a 
projector, poster printing and leaflet printing for many of the 
participants.

I guess the moral of this tale is to ask first and gripe later.

Perhaps we will now see GNOME exhibiting at the next Expo. Its in April 
so that should be plenty of tie to start planning things.

Regards

Brian Teeman
UKLinux.net
.Organiser and Sponsor of the .Org Village