One of our chronic problems is getting interest in GNHLUG, both from a "regular membership" standpoint, and from the standpoint of getting volunteers. This page is dedicated to ideas for solving this problem.

FIXME need more ideas

Advertising GNHLUG

Letting people know we exist.

• HossTraders is used for this
• What about JunkMail?
• Getting GNHLUG and the GNHLUG Chapters listed on various web sites:
  • http://wiki.oreillynet.com/usergroups/index.cgi?LinuxGroups
  • http://glue.linuxjournal.com
  • http://www.bostonusergroups.net/DNN
  • http://lugww.counter.li.org/groups.cms?&cc=US&rc=NH
  • http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Software/Operating_Systems/UNIX/Linux/User_Groups/
  • http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Operating_Systems/Linux/User_Groups/North_America/United_States/New_Hampshire/ (submitted dlslug.org, slug.gnhlug.org and centralug.org on 8-Jan-2005 - tr)
  • http://www.redhat.com/opensourcenow/army_of_friends.html
• Presentations that mention GNHLUG:
  • http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/private/gnhlug-discuss/2005-October/011747.html - TedRoche to SwANH Info Exchange
• Doing "booth duty" at trade shows, conferences, and expositions.
  • Linux World
  • Hosstraders

Promoting Meetings

We try to have regular meetings with good presentation, but people don't always show. How can we get more people to come?

• More advanced notice - We're all busy, so we all tend to not send notice soon enough
• More frequent notice - A single notice is easy to miss; several are not
• More... ?
• Get the regulars to show up - call or write the usual suspects. A personal invitation makes a difference.
• Followup on folks who don't show up any more: contact them and ask why?
• Work at a variety of topics from our volunteer MeetingSpeakers: newbie, user space, admin, scripting, games, music, graphics, commercial, non-profit, vendor, etc.
• Publicize the meetings: if you have an announcement ready two weeks in advance, send it to our MediaOutlets.

Getting Volunteers

And, of course, we need volunteers to help run the show.

Delegate some responsibility and get more people involved. More involved people tend to become more invested, get more from the group and give more back, a positive feedback loop. A chapter could have:

• A chapter coordinator who ensures the chapter continues to meet
• A deputy coordinator to MC the meetings when the c.c. is unavailable, act as general backup
• A meeting planner to reserve room, speaker, topic and find new topic
• A publicist to draw up the announcements, send out the PR
• A membership person to greet new members, note attendance at the meetings, create / maintain a contact list.

In the past, JerryKubeck managed to get quite a few people in to help with the LinuxBusinessShow. How did he do that? We should ask him.