[ale] future of ALE NW

[Christopher Gilbert]

On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 06:15, Geoffrey wrote:
> Christopher Gilbert wrote:
> > <rant style="bombastic">
> > 
> > It would have been nice for there to have been some advanced notice.  If
> > this counts as an organizational meeting for KSU's student LUG then it
> > does not bode well for student involvement.
> > For example the Information Systems club papered Clendenin with notices
> > about their organizational meeting.  I would have settled for a post to
> > this list.  I was told student officers were appointed?
> 
> Advance notice regarding what?  The meeting?  The bottom line is, 
> there's been virtually no student involvement in the meetings AT ALL. 
> The lug, as far as I know was virtually non-existent at KSU and did 
> nothing to promote the meetings. Dow Hurst has done more to promote the 
> meetings at KSU then anyone else.  The last meeting there were 5 
> attendees, three of which I know do not attend KSU.  Something has to be 
> done in order to continue making the meetings worth attending.  Further, 
> the only persons working on getting presenters have been Dow and me. 
> It's become difficult to get presenters and with such a low showing, who 
> wants to devote time and energy to a presentation for 5 people?
> 
> The bottom line is, if there is no student involvement in the ALE 
> meetings at KSU, there will be no meetings.  Something has to be done.

I was not referring to the regular monthly meetings which are on ALE.org
w/ speakers etc. 

Here I was referring to this organizational meeting in particular.  And
I meant no sleight to those working hard to make these monthly meetings
happen.  Did you miss understand me or just trying to point out that
monthly meetings are promoted. 

> > My apologies if this meeting was publicized and I have my head up my
> > arse, or if the meeting was not as I have characterized it.
> 
> The attendees were primarily point people for various organizations. 
> Myself and Dow as interested ALE members who were the primary 'creators' 
> of the ALE meetings at KSU.  Matthew M. the new LUG president, Dr. 
> Gaylor the LUG advisor and Emil Man, a KSU student who has been in 
> attendance at various ALE NW meetings.  There was no intent in having a 
> mass of people at the meeting as it was already quite difficult in 
> getting schedules to mesh and have the meeting.

I am not asking/expecting you to match my schedule or any other student
who may have wanted to attend the organizational meeting. Just send a
note to the L that is all I would ask and I have said as much to Matthew
in the past.

> > But to respond to what Geoffrey wrote, my thinking is that because so
> > many of the upper level CS classes are being taught at night now. It may
> > be difficult to find a time that works for both students and those lucky
> > enough to be employed.  I have a Thursday night class with no less that
> > five students w/ linux notebooks.  Short of moving to weekends I don't
> > see how to work it out with just one meeting. I don't know if ppl are so
> > geeky as to show up for a friday night meeting or not.
> 
> The point is, the meetings are advertised on the ALE list, so I don't 
> know of any other way to increase the non-student attendance.  If the 
> LUG get's involved in promoting the meetings and the time is changed so 
> that more students can attend, then that is a good thing.  The bottom 
> line is, the only way to increase attendance is to focus on the student 
> population.

Agreed however not advertising an organizational meeting is a real
turn-off to those who might want to be involved in reconstituting the
student LUG.

Anyway back to a more fruitful comments.  
I would be willing to organizing a survey of KSU students to in an
effort to judge the level of interest and to elicit suggestions. 
If ppl think that would be helpful.    
> > 
> > Just my 2 cents as a KSU student... 
> 
> Just my 2 cents as the originator of the ALE NW meetings.