Organizing TLUG/newTLUG meetings for the west end of Metro, Golden Horseshoe

[Bill Mudry]

In a conversation on the phone today with Matthew Rice, we got talking 
again about the idea
of having meetings for the west end of the lake. I said I would help get 
the word around more,
so here goes :-).

On first thoughts, it would be situated in Mississauga. That should make 
sense since it is
central to a number of west end places including Etobicoke, Brampton, 
Oakville, Burlington,
Mississauga itself (of course), perhaps even Hamilton, Kitchner, etc. 
Matthew suggested somewhere
along Dundas in the west end of Mississauga.

How ironical, I thought, since I just happen to live five minutes walk from 
the Woodchester
Mall off Dundas. Hehe..... honest, no prompting from me. Nevertheless, I 
highly recommend
it. There are all kinds of eateries on Dundas between Erin Mills Parkway 
and the 403 (and
Dundas). The #1 Mississauga Transit bus runs the whole length east-west to 
Islington station,
other routes north-south. the #19 bus goes all the way to Shoppers World in 
Brampton.
By car, the QEW is not that far and the 403 crosses Dundas even closer. The 
closest train
station is Clarkson, so members even from Hamilton could ride GO. 
Everything for the
region is well supplied with inroads.

For a start I don't think we really need a large meeting room. Nor should 
we need a special
speaker ---- at least not at first. I am sure there are many of us that 
would be glad simply to
meet each other, share time and a meal once a month in a restaurant. One 
person suggested
days ago re. the new downtown restaurant that programmers could present the 
projects
they are working on. That could work well even in restaurant settings up to 
30 -50 people with
arrangements at a restaurant, even easier with a smaller group --- west 
end, too :-).

A number of years ago, when I was membership manager of the International 
Programmers
Guild, a whole bunch of us used to meet once a month first at Movenpick in 
Toronto and
later in another restaurant (... forgot the name for now) and that worked 
out fine. Everyone
got used to where the meetings would be. If the response is larger early 
on, we will have to
rethink how and where to meet but there is no use over-planning at the start.

Lets see a show of hands on how many of you would be interested. Share your 
ideas, what
you would want but be realistic for a start. Write to either list, email me 
personally or feel free
to call me (905) 822-6088.

Bill Mudry

--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml