Date:    Sat, 19 Dec 1998 20:17:32 -0500
From:    Bruce Dawson <jbd@codemeta.com>
Subject: GNHLUG NUN minutes

On 17 Dec 1998, a number of local GNHLUG'er got together to plan a
continuing series of New User Meetings for Linux. The remainder of
this message is notes from the meeting.

If you wish to follow this development, then please join the general
GNHLUG discussions mailing list
(http://linux.codemeta.com/linux/gnhlug.html)

Please note that the next general meeting of GNHLUG will be Wednesday,
January 27, 1999 at UNH. It will be a "dress rehersal" and discussion
of this effort. Another announcement will be issued as the time gets
closer.

* NUM Planning Meeting Attendees
  Maddog, Dan York, Carl Helmers, Chad Henry, Rob Fowler, Rich Payner

Mostly Maddog and Dan were in charge of the Dry Marker. Bruce video'ed
the meeting for notes (and is thus sending them out - the video tape
isn't available).

We covered many topics, some were issues, some were just topics. But in
the end, we ended up with a list of action items and dates.

A large chunk of the meeting was spent just "covering ground". In this
part of the meeting a lot of interesting topics were discussed, but a
lot weren't taken up as issues, so they're not included here.

What I've listed below are some of the topics that did come up and
resulted in decisions.

In general, the NUN meetings are designed to answer questions by
people who want to know what Linux is and to demonstrate Linux's
abilities. If people in the audience want more information, then
they'll be directed to local Linux User groups or to the main GNHLUG
meetings in Durham/Nashua.

* Target audience

  Who do we want to target these meetings for?? (Somehow we decided to
  have another set of meetings without deciding what the purpose of
  the meetings were!)

  The types of people who we thought might attend a Linux meeting are:

      o Those who just use it.
      o Business users (people who need a business platform)
      o Microsoft Haters
      o Unix users
      o Just plain interested non-users.

** Interested non-users

   Most "interested non-users" (INU's) will want to know "What can it
   do?"

   The next thing INUs will want to know is:

       o How to install it.
       o How to set up the environment.
       o How to use it.

   These can't be discussed in the alloted time, so there must be
   someone people can go to after the meeting.

   Maddog suggested "mentoring". The more advanced users would
   volunteer some time to mentor new users. Mentors would make
   themselves available to the local community to answer questions new
   users might have.

** Structure

   After some discussion, we decided to have the meeting every 2nd
   Tuesday around the state.

   The general structure of a meeting will be:

    7:00 Intro
    7:15 Presentation
    7:30 "
    7:45 "
    8:00 Break
    8:15 Q&A
    8:30 "
    8:45 "
    9:00 "

   The web site will have:

     Contacts and dates

   Each meeting will have the following materials (which should also
   be on the web site) (The people who produce the first version are
   listed in parenthesis - feel free to send them info!):

    List of Web Sites (Dan/Bob Sparks)
    List of books (Chad)
    List of local support people (Maddog)
        Mentor
Contact person
    How to subscribe to GNHLUG (Bruce)
    Sample Distribution (Maddog)
    Hardware HowTo (Rob Fowler)
    Application list (With URLs) (Rich)
    Linux for Cheap (maddog)

** Preparation

   Now, each meeting will need some preparation - especially since
   they'll be spread around the state.

    Demo system (Rob Fowler - thanks Chad for donating the system!)
    List of media contacts (Dan)
    presentation (Dan)
    support handout (Bruce)
    presentation handout (Dan/Maddog)
    video/notetaking (Bruce when available)

* Next meeting
  Jan 18, 19:00 NUN planning meeting will be at MicroSmart.
  Jan 27, 19:00 at Durham. Dress rehersal. Complete with new users.

* Readers:

If you have additional ideas or comments, please send them to
gnhlug-nun@codemeta.com

If you have some resources (or lists of books, media contacts, ...)
please send them to the above address too!

The following addresses were obfuscated to prevent spamming. To
construct the real address, replace "nospam" with an at-sign (@)

dyork nospam lodestar2.com (Dan York)
hall nospam zk3.dec.com (maddog)
jbd nospam codemeta.com (bruce)
robfowlr nospam seacoast.com (Rob Fowler)
payner nospam timken.com (Rich)
- --
Bruce Dawson, CodeMeta, Inc.; New Hampshire, USA
http://linux.codemeta.com/~jbd