Re: [SAGE] Starting a local sage group

["der.hans" <SAGE@LuftHans.com>]

Am 27. Jan, 2002 schwätzte Craig Hancock so:

> I am in the process of starting a local sage group here and I am curious
> of how to proceed. I am from chicago and if anyone has ever been to
> chicago they can agree with me it is a big place. The problem that I am
> having is these factors
>
> 1) Distance

This is a big one in Phoenix. I think we're 100 miles across. Our LUG has
started having West Side meetings as well as East Side meetings. A whole new
group of people started showing up for the West Side meetings. It was cool
to get that off the ground.

> 2) Convincing syustem admins that this would be beneficial

This can be hard, but I think you'd be OK in Chicago. Start off with a few
people you know, then use duct tape to capture other participants :).

> 3) Other User groups who deal with one aspect of system adminstration and
> only care about that aspect.

With something like this ( actually with any organization where you might
have a lot of people intersted in both groups ) you can either work with
them or avoid them. I no longer participate in our local SAGE group because
they changed the meeting nights to be the same as our main LUG meeting. I
help run the LUG, so it's hard for me to skip even if I wanted to. Many
people have mentioned having to choose between the two.

At the same time the two groups ( and others ) worked together to bring esr
in town twice with great success. Several other co-sponsored events were
looking good, but just didn't make it off the ground.

Another problem with the local SAGE group is they have no general member
mailing list. Other than the people I already know, I have no way of
communicating with other members or asking them questions. Not that I need
another mailing list anyway :).

ciao,

der.hans
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