ubuntu-us-wisconsin team mailing list archive

[Ian Weisser <ian-weisser@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 2016-04-30 at 18:50 -0500, Simon Quigley wrote:
> 
> Could you elaborate on this so we can discuss it?
> 


Sure, and old-timers like mikeputnam or h00k are welcome to chime in
with their many years of banging heads against the wall on this issue.

This team was created in 2007. I've been a member since 2008. 

The WI LoCo has always faced three big challenges:

1) Spacial: Members are widely scattered - there seems no strong core
of LoCo members in Milwaukee nor Madison nor any other WI community.

2) Temporal: Members expire and leave instead of sticking around. When
new members appear in, say, Rhinelander, old members in that area have
vanished. Older members tend to drift away into new interests or local
LUGs instead of sticking around to provide continuity and resources.

3) Goals: The LoCo has never has a set of goals that members were very
interested in. Most new members seem to be looking for a welcoming
social community more than evangelizing Ubuntu. A few new members have
had specific projects in mind.

The three challenges support each other, creating a lot of inertia to
overcome.

When I look at the big, popular LoCos (Vancouver, Paris, California), I
see a small core of long-term members who enjoy the social contact of
the events and mostly live close to one (or two) major locations. 

That's my view of the WI LoCo challenges that cause a lack of activity.
What do you see?

Cheers,

Ian