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?"

Re:Why don't you ask your members?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even more ironic, since the user group's acronym is CLUE.

Ask /.

[photon317]

This would have made the first decent Ask Slashdot in a while, since it actually seeks a broad range of opinion and experiential knowledge from the community that probably can't be found in 5 seconds on Google. Too bad it wasn't in the Ask Slashdot section though :)

Re:Ask /.

[photon317]

I don't ever go to XYZ.slashdot.org, I think that whole naming system is a bunch of crap. Without looking at the URL, there was no way to know - for the most part I know an article is in Ask Slashdot beacuse the article usually says so somewhere.

IMHO

[Mathness]

any LUG meeting should be free. Mostly because this is one of the corner stones in the "movement".

The people who normally go to LUGs probably would not mind paying for better facilities, but most new and potential members, or people who are curious, will not since they have little or no idea of what excalty is going on at a meeting. Of cause the price have something to say as well.

Re:IMHO

[wdr1]

any LUG meeting should be free. Mostly because this is one of the corner stones in the "movement".

err, that's free as in speech, not as in beer.

-Bill

Re:IMHO

[foobar104]

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.

Some other examples

[Anonymous Coward]

The Austin Linux Users Group gets meeting space for free from the city. The city allows groups like this to sign up to use conference rooms in city buildings, when the building is open after hours but the room is not being used; a member of the group works for the city in that building and takes care of all that. You do have to sign in and out on a visitor guest sheet, which is unfortunate, but the room is very nice, and has white boards and a projector that can hook up to a laptop.

If you read gnu.misc.discuss, you can see the announcements of the New York group -- they have to sign up ahead of time, and present ID, it's even more facist than a guest list, where at least you can lie.

It depends on what your group wants to do. I would suggest having an install fest or two at the new place, just to check it out, seeing what the sense of the group is on the mailing list.

Personally, I would prefer a meeting place at a public library or community center which is absolutely free and open at the right time. It's less likely to give the marginally curious an excuse not to come to your group. If you can get net access from some leaking wireless point, great, but it's not at all a necessary part of a LUG meeting.

Offer the venue some software in exchange

[Random Hamster]

Tell them you'll give them some copies of Linux or Open Office completely free in return for use of the venue.

Re:Offer the venue some software in exchange

[nelsonal]

While this appears to be in jest, it might not be a bad idea to offer to set up a wireless network, or use their wires if its a newer hotel, cheapo sustems in rooms with Linux for the hotel. I would guess that they would appreciate being able to offer internet access to their customers, and especially if it was at a lower cost then they originally thought. This would also expose many business people to linux.

We get our venue from IBM

[Nailer]

The Linux Users of Victoria [luv.asn.au] 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.

One of our members is a church go'in man..

[lowtekneq]

One of the members of my lug (www.salug.org) goes to church and we get to use many of the side buildings of the chuch complex. Most of the rooms we've used were fairly large and fairly comfortable. We did not have an internet connection though. But hey, its free!

Colleges and universities

[DevilM]

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.

How about the Novell office?

[Chope]

The Portland, Oregon Biznix [biznix.org] group meets at the local Novell office training room. It seats about 20-30 people. Biznix is ostensibly an all-flavors Unix support group, but proably 85%+ of the discussion centers on Linux.

This situation of strange bedfellows probably has a lot to do with the fact that the founder had also founded a Novell user group. The Novell group no longer exists, but the founder had a lot of credibility with the local Novel folks and is still on good terms with them.

library, university, or employer conference room

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have thought that's what most do. Paying for a meeting place? why do that when you could get a decent meeting location for free?

Colleges & Libraries

[Anonymous Coward]

The linux users group in Memphis, GOLUM [golum.org], holds most of its meetings at AutoZone's headquarters downtown. AutoZone donates the use of the conference room. There was also a meeting today at the local community college, who are kind enough to donate space in one of their labs for a couple of hours.

Of course it helps that employees from AutoZone and the college are members of the user group. If your group doesn't have any members with ties to corporations (aside from the current sponsor) or academia, you could always ask your local public library, if you have one. Many of them have meeting rooms which can be reserved for use by non-profit groups, or even by the public.

Our Linux Club

[epsalon]

At the Haifa(Israel) Linux Club [eu.org], we meet in a classroom of the local technological institute, which we get for free (including a windows PC+Internet with projector, and ability to connect laptop). The faculty agrees to help, as several club members are TAs or employees of the faculty.

Schools/Offices after business hours

[orakle]

Our lug, MLUG [www.mlug.ca] or the Montreal Linux Users Group's venue is a room provided by a local college (Vanier) after hours to us free of charge. The downside to this is that even though they teach computer programs here, they won't give us access to the labs. What we used to have though, and when we dont hear from Vanier, is an office of one of our members which, though it accompanies less people, is fully equipped with ~15 computers, most of which run as thin clients to an LTSP server which provide all your basic internet needs and some other stuff as well. That worked out good for a while, but then people actually started showing up and we grew out of it :( So if any Montreal, Canada slashdotters here are looking for a cool lug to join, cruise down to our website [www.mlug.ca] and read up on the information. We also invite you to join our mailing list where we discuss Linux/Open-Source issues as well as group stuff.

The Bangalore LUG

[toolz]

At the Bangalore LUG [linux-bangalore.org], we have a simple system:

First of all, sponsored or not, members attending are expected to contribute something. We typically announce what the cost of the meet will be, and divvy it up over the expected number of attendees (typically 80-100), which sets the amount each person is expected to pay (ranges between Rs.66-Rs.100, with US$1=Rs.48).

We then scout for sponsors (which we usually get) and dump the sponsorship money into the pool, and reduce "gate fees" for members. If the sponsorship amount is less than the cost of the meet, members make up the difference.

However, even if the sponsorship covers the cost of the meet completely, we collect a minimal amount (usually Rs.25) from members. This minimum is never announced - members arrive mentally prepared to pay the full amount.

This is for two reasons: to stock up for lean times (next meet may not be sponsored, which happens occassionally) and to act as a "filter", so that the sponsor does not have to pay for people who aren't really interested in Linux/OpenSource, but who would come simply because there is free grub to be had.

It should be noted that we typically meet in upclass hotels, and place great emphasis on good food, airconditioning and facilities such as data projectors, screens, amplification and other stuff. This does cost a bit, but thanks to this system we have successfully pulled this off since 1998.

As an aside - we have been accused of "violating the spirit of Linux and OpenSource" by charging people for attending, or driving up the cost by using upclass venues.

I think that is a dumb attitude. The BLUG delivers a lot of value to its members in terms of technical talks, events and other stuff, and it isn't that we are taking candy from kids - the typical cover charge is far lower than what a student would spend on two beers and a meal (around Rs.120-150) at Bangalore's favourite watering hole - the Windsor Pub.

Since most of our members are IT professionals (hey, we are the *BANGALORE* LUG ;), the charge is *way* below the financial threshold of pain for anyone even casually interested in the meeting content, which is always well planned and delivered.

Meet in a restaurant

[splorf]

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.

Glen Burnie LUG

[travail_jgd]

The GBLUG was forced to relocate after our meeting place (a local library) was snatched by a number of other groups. The officers did some research, and here's the ideas we came up with and what we found out for our area (Central Maryland):

Libraries: Free, very accessible, and easy to deal with. Surprisingly, all of the libraries in our county allow light refreshments in the meeting room.

Community Centers: Expensive. Even for a non-profit, all of them wanted $50 per hour. Way out of our budget.

Police Stations: Free, accessible, and safe. Apparently all of the stations with meeting rooms cannot charge for them. While I've never been to a meeting at one, everyone who has says they're quite nice. (I guess they were expecting bars :)

Large Bookstores: We contacted several bookstores in the area, but none of them were willing to allow the LUG to meet. One would think that the prospect of selling more computer books would be sufficient incentive.

Churches, Fire Halls, Union Halls: Most of these places view their large areas as a means for profit, and may charge serious money to rent them.

Other options. You may be able to get space at a college (four-year or community). Also, have you considered talking to other companies about a meeting space?

Also, is your group able to pay anything toward a meeting place? We're still pretty new, and have almost nothing in the treasury; there isn't any way for us to pay for a meeting place currently, and we're not willing to start charging.

Talk to your local university

[rweir]

If your local CS department won't let you use some of their space, then you must be in Waterloo [slashdot.org].

Tried your local Uni?

[perlboy84]

Have you tried your local University? Here in Australia (specifically Queensland) we are lucky enough to be supplied with premises free of charge by the University of Queensland. They provide us with a nice big room, close proximity to food and an unlimited 100MB internet connection (big ask for Australia @ 25c/Meg). Try your local University, maybe you'll have some luck. :) Stuart P.S. Anyone want to populate #linux on irc.uq.edu.au ? ;)