[BozemanLUG] A few paragraphs about BozemanLUG organic history

[Scott Dowdle]

Greetings,

Ben Sutter was curious meeting-before-last... as to why we didn't have any students attending our meetings so I thought I'd write up a little history / background.  I definitely encourage reader feedback to fill in the cracks, as I'm not 100% certain in some areas... as are general suggestions on how to improve the BozemanLUG.  We have gone through this a few times over the years... and if anyone wants to retread any past territory, feel free.

The BozemanLUG started sometime in late 1998 or early 1999 by a guy who has since died of cancer (Ken Dyke).  I lived in Billings from 1998-2005 and would a few times a year... drive to the Bozeman meetings to attend.  I liked Ken but he wasn't a saint.  He had a drunk driving accident at some point where someone was killed.  I don't know the details on it but it did cause some discomfort in the group... especially since I think there was some jail time associated with it.

Anyway... about a year before Ken died, he moved to Helena and I moved to Bozeman.  Ken basically asked me to pick up the BozemanLUG for him... because he had grown tired of driving into Bozeman himself trying to keep it going... and wanted to start something up in Helena.  I'll not going to go into the history of the HelenaLUG though.

Anyway... yeah, I took it over in late 2005.  Between the origin and the 2005 the meeting place had changed several times... but for the longest time it had been meeting at a realtor office near the corner of 19th and Koch.  That meeting place was reasonable and it was free... but I had to go over there before the meeting and pick up a key.  As I stopped driving to work and taking the bus... the trek over there to pick up the key was becoming annoying... so I decided to just to move the meeting over to a room I managed for my job... which, as you know... happens to be affiliated with MSU and the Computer Science Department.  Over the years we have had various students and MSU employees attend BozemanLUG meetings... but given the mid-term temporariness of their residence in Bozeman... very few of them hung around.

Since I work for the CS Dept. and teach a SysAdmin class every Spring (for the last 6 or 7 years), I have always felt somewhat uncomfortable telling students about the group and the meetings... because I felt it might in some way be seen as pressuring them into it... and I wasn't always confident in the quality of our meeting contents... so I thought in many cases they'd be disappointed if they attended anyway.  We have had some students get interested just because they saw us in the lab area... and heard a little bit about what we were talking about... and decided to butt in and join us... but since more students have been in the rooms this past year and I didn't want to disturb them, we have been meeting in my office area... minimizing potential contact with students.

Anyway, the BozemanLUG has never been the MSU-LUG nor the CSDept-LUG or anything like that... so that's why we haven't really put much effort into making it one of those.  I understand we could probably get much better attendance by students if we put more effort into advertising it... as well as much more effort into securing quality presentations on a regular basis... but the later has been a bit of a challenge that none of us long-timers have been very interested in investing in... nor have we found any new-blood that was willing to take on the challenge.

With all of that background, for the foreseeable future, not much will change... and I hope that is ok.

TYL,
-- 
Scott Dowdle
704 Church Street
Belgrade, MT 59714
(406)388-0827 [home]
(406)994-3931 [work]