[NTLUG:Discuss] Study Group...

[cbbrowne@godel.brownes.org]

On Mon, 27 Sep 1999 08:00:07 CDT, the world broke into rejoicing as
Dale Massey <dmassey at utdallas.edu>  said:
> Greaghoir wrote:
> > Oidche mhath...
> > 
> > Steve writes:
> > >Seems like NTLUG is large enough that it would be worth seriously
> > >considering creating some local chapters to meet between the main
> > >NTLUG monthly events.
> > 
> > Agreed. I was quite impressed with the turnout Saturday.
> > 
> > >However, rather than doing it haphazardly, perhaps it would be
> > >a good idea to try to figure out where the clusters of interested
> > >people are.
> > 
> > Well, this is somthing I think that will take care of its self. Where there
> > is a need and a desire, they will form themselves. There were 6 responses
> > just yesterday to my request for folks who might be interested in forming a
> > Ft. Worth discussion/study group. With a bit of luck and a few more days I
> > can see having 10 or so folks interested in getting this going. I think the
y
> > will all rise from peoples need and desire to learn.
> > 
> > Just so long as things are well thought out schedule wise so that their are
> > no conflicts with NTLUG I think everything will be ok.
> > 
> > >(BTW:  I live in Cedar Hill - and I'd be interested in some
> > >kind of South Arlington/South Grand Prairie/Cedar Hill group
> > >meeting perhaps monthly in anti-phase with the main meetings.)
> > 
> > I live in Bedford, thats not much of a trip for me at all.
> 
> There has been a lug here at the University of Texas at Dallas for the
> past year. The President of the Lug makes sure that the schedule never
> conflicts with the NTLUG schedule and he attends the meetings of NTLUG
> pretty regularly. They have also got a great project comming up in this
> year. They are going to build a beowulf cluster on sparc architechtor.
> The univeristy (specificly the EE/CS depts.) is providing the hardware
> and the lug the manpower. The web site is :
> http://lug.utdallas.edu

Interesting.

Three problems come to mind, not necessarily insurmountable ones:
a) Coordination
b) Division of resources
c) Elephants rolling over smaller orgs

The first problem with having a bunch of little LUGs is that this means
that there's more things to try to coordinate together.  Scheduling being
one of those things.

A second problem is that by dividing "leadership efforts" in a larger
number of directions, this may leave some of the "Herd of LUGs" less
viable.

A third problem is that supposing (say) the Big Group has to do something,
say, to reschedule a meeting due to (say) Disaster At Nokia, or perhaps
sudden availability of a Celebrity Speaker, this can dump trouble all over
the plans of the Little LUGs.

That being said, merits of A Herd of LUGs do exist, and include:
- If NTLUG gets to be a big, big group, it gets hard to get a space in
  which to fit that big, big group.
- It certainly lets more volunteers be involved in leading LUGs.
- If groups are kept smaller, that allows more individual involvement.

Part of the 'problem' right now is that NTLUG just got incorporated, and
lots of little things are in process of being slightly more formalized.
Give a couple of months and it can start to make sense to look into ways
of "making NTLUG feel a bit smaller."
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