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Paying for LUG Meeting Space?
Johann asks: "Our LUG has been fortunate to hold meetings for the past two years in a corporate-sponsored basement auditorium. The sponsor pays for us to use this room, which seats around 50-60 comfortably. We normally fill the room. We have an offer to move to a meeting room in a Radisson hotel at a highly-reduced rate. This room has many advantages over our current 'free' one, such as better handicapped and after-hours access, internet connectivity, better temperature control, and room for more people. The only problem: the members likely will have to bear the costs of this room ourselves. So, my question to other LUGs: Are you paying for your meeting space? If so, by what means? Donations? Sponsors? Passing-the-Hat? How have the members taken to paying for space?"
The Linux Users of Victoria currently have our venue donated by IBM. IBM have a Linux marketing manager (Katie Axam, we love you) who fielded our request for a venue.
The venue is amazing - its in the corporate headquarters of Telstra, out countries telecommunications monopoly. Its around three stories tall, and has a projection screen that's around two stories, radio mikes, and even video recording facilities - its amazing to speak at, If you know what you're going to talk about, you can simply walk around the stage talking to the audience and pointing at things on your presentation using your hands or a laser pointer if you want, because you're not tethered to your laptop - its simply feels a lot more natural. IBM even provide light refreshments before the meeting.
As a result, they've made 1300 Linux users, many of whom are professional network / systems administrators and coders, quite partial to IBM.
Previously, Melbourne University and Sun Micrososystems have provided venues.
Many colleges and universities allow user groups to make use of their facilities. Their facilities are generally really nice and include high speed Internet access. Check with your membership to see if anyone has a higher education affiliation that might be able to help.
Mostly because this is one of the corner stones in the "movement".
Stones in your movements could indicate serious health problems. You should see your doctor immediately.
The Bay Area LUG (www.balug.org) meets in a Chinese restaurant near downtown San Francisco, one of the most expensive places you can think of to find meeting space. I don't think the LUG pays anything. The trick is simple. The meeting has a speaker and Q&A session, followed by dinner. Typically 70 or so people come to the meeting, which is more customers than the restaurant would normally get on a weeknight, and the cost of dinner (a prefab concoction by the restaurant, not bad but nothing very fancy) is included in the $10 meeting fee, so the restaurant makes a nice profit that pays for letting the LUG use the space.
If your local CS department won't let you use some of their space, then you must be in Waterloo.