ubuntu-us-ohio team mailing list archive

[Cheri Francis <cheri703@xxxxxxxxx>]

I accidentally sent this only to SMK, so apologies for the duplicate:

For the Mansfield ReLoCo, our official name is "Mansfield and Too Far
to drive to Akron, Columbus, Cleveland, or anywhere else" Basically
whoever wants to fall in that area and finds us most convenient. My
understanding is that's basically the definition of the Columbus and
Akron ones as well. "NEO" might be too generic.

I encourage people from other areas to come visit Mansfield's Ubuntu
hour / future events. I'm not going to turn someone away because
they're from another area. I think we're too segregated as it is
(people from Cleveland don't know people from Dayton in person, etc).

Personal anecdote time (feel free to disregard): Growing up, my church
had a yearly camping thing. A TON of girls got pissy because I'd leave
our "unit" (our usual congregation's group) and would go hang out with
people from others. This was one of FEW times I got to see them all in
one place, so I was darn sure going to hang out more with them, and
less with the people I saw multiple times per week.

Having fuzzy boundaries is NOT a bad thing. It lets more ideas flow
from one group to another. I'm not saying that defining NEO a certain
way is going to keep people out, but it makes it feel less welcoming.
Saying XYZ counties are in THIS ReLoCo and ABC counties are in THAT
ReLoCo discourages the person who lives closer to the XYZ location
than the ABC one, but is *technically* in ABC. They feel that they
"aren't supposed" to go to the one they're closer to, when in
actuality, they'd be a regular attendee and participant.

Anyway, just some thoughts...and it got longer than
anticipated...sorry for that. :)

-Cheri Francis