[EdLUG] In search of a new venue still

Wed Jan 16 19:34:02 UTC 2019

Hi Everyone

I just wanted to start by thanking Tai for all the work he has put into arranging the meetups and looking for alternative venues. Your work has been and is very much appreciated :)

I voted in the poll but unfortunately messed up my selection – I would like to put forward Monday and Tuesday as alternative venues as well. I am free tomorrow night (Thursday) to visit the BrewDog Garage, if anyone would like to join me? It’s a little late but it would be good to check out the venue together if we can.

Regarding Akva, if this is the same place I am thinking of in Fountainbridge I believe I have been there before. I visited the venue a few times whilst volunteering for a computer tutoring club. We had the space upstairs for a few hours and could order drinks as needed. It was during the day, but the area is spacious and the atmosphere relatively peaceful. This is definitely a venue which may have potential if The Royal Dick at Summerhall turns out to be unsuitable. The Royal Dick was a good venue when we visited last week, it had a good vibe and it’s located reasonably centrally.

Best Wishes

Shehraz

________________________________
From: EdLUG <edlug-bounces at lists.edlug.org.uk> on behalf of Edinburgh Linux Users Group <edlug at lists.edlug.org.uk>
Sent: 14 January 2019 15:52
To: Edinburgh Linux Users Group
Subject: Re: [EdLUG] In search of a new venue still

Hi all

Thanks for the extra suggestions, and reviews

* BrewDog Garage - if anyone foot-commutes via that way or will be there this week, could you pop in and have a look and mail in your discoveries please? I might not be able to get to it before the week-end otherwise
* Akva - same thing.

The two are close by so if nobody does either of these by this week-end I'll see if I can give it a go

* Waitrose in Comely Bank - I'd fear that is a bit out of the way. I know someone out that way and the buses aren't the most frequent...

Shehraz and I went to The Royal Dick at Summerhall last Thursday, it's accessible (side entrance) and has a private room. I'm still waiting on the price from them, which they've tentatively indicated as being a "£50 deposit for food bookings of 10+ people," the person on the phone did not have the lee way to answer to the full details of what I was asking so I've directed them to a mail I sent last week for extra info. I'm hoping that if we became a confirmed monthly thing, they might cut us a nice deal, if prices are involved at all

As far as the room goes, in principle it should work ; the only caveat is that the room has a large dining table in it. Ideal for placing a projector and putting computers on, and everybody's round the same table; though it does mean the experience could feel like a cabinet meeting...

Finally, the day. I take on board Thomas's remark about other relevant meetup on the same day-pattern ; Kris also attends an alternative meetup (ethical hacking?) that happens on the same evening. This is a quick poll to figure out what might suit best as alternatives - if you vote for "something else", please make a suggestion in the comments of the poll.

https://framadate.org/5JnBnivPjPpIA68k ; please respond there.

Cheers

Tai

===
Tai Kedzierski
Linux Operations and Deployments Engineer

RHCSA # 170-060-834<https://www.redhat.com/rhtapps/services/verify?certId=170-060-834>

I use LibreOffice<https://www.libreoffice.org/> , a free, Freedom-respecting replacement for MS Office

Open Source Free Software is a matter of liberty, not price.
https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software

On Thu, 10 Jan 2019 at 16:51, Edinburgh Linux Users Group <edlug at lists.edlug.org.uk<mailto:edlug at lists.edlug.org.uk>> wrote:
I certainly wouldn't restrict the possible venues to pubs; I don't think many pubs will have good spaces for talks, and as Mark mentioned, it can feel awkward going to a pub if you don't want to drink. Moving on to a pub afterwards, or mixing pub-based social meetups with talk meetups seem like better ideas.

I was at a (very small) meetup in Akva recently - they had reserved a table in a quiet-ish corner, which I imagine didn't cost anything. It was comfortable, and the atmosphere made it easier to order a tea or coffee if you didn't want alcohol. A nice place for a social meeting, but the area we were in wouldn't work for a presentation. I haven't seen the upstairs space.

Waitrose in Comely Bank has a 'community room' which is free for 'charity events or regular community get togethers'. I don't know if there's any projector or screen, though, and it might be a bit out of the way (20-30 minutes walk from the city centre).

The first Thursday of the month is the same schedule as PyData Edinburgh, which I also often want to go to, so I'd personally prefer a different day. But looking at https://opentechcalendar.co.uk/area/62-edinburgh/calendar? most weekdays already seem to have some kind of event, so it's probably not feasible to avoid conflicts.

Thomas

On Thu, Jan 10, 2019, at 4:14 PM, Edinburgh Linux Users Group wrote:
Hi all,

I checked the asking price to get the Codebase room. For the evening, it's approximately £230 incl AV suite. £215 without. Needless to say, this is not a viable option.

I intend to meet up with Shehraz this evening, the two places I wanted to have a look into are Spoon, the cafe on Nicolson street which has a large space and might be amenable to a bunch of people talking and presenting on a quieter night ; and the Royal Dick at Summerhall which has a few rooms, any one of which we could potentially try to reserve for an hour and a half... enquiry to be made.

@Mark thanks for the vote of support and suggestions ; from my last visit to Hacklab, their space is near entirely devoted to projects in various stages so I doubt having more than 3-4 people in a room there would work ! I presume TechCube might look like similar prices as to Codebase ...?

The receptionist at Codebase suggested looking into Aqva by Fountainbridge, apparently they have an upstairs space that could be suitable and there's already a meetup or two that convene there she believed.

Cheers

Tai

===
Tai Kedzierski
Linux Operations and Deployments Engineer

RHCSA # 170-060-834<https://www.redhat.com/rhtapps/services/verify?certId=170-060-834>

I use LibreOffice<https://www.libreoffice.org/> , a free, Freedom-respecting replacement for MS Office

Open Source Free Software is a matter of liberty, not price.
https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software

On Tue, 8 Jan 2019 at 23:37, Edinburgh Linux Users Group <edlug at lists.edlug.org.uk<mailto:edlug at lists.edlug.org.uk>> wrote:
Hi all,

Just a recap on the state of things.

Happy new 'ears !

Last week's meetup was... not as comfortable as I'd hoped, owing to it being a football night, AND the quiz was not put off in the slightest.

It remains that we cannot hope to continue to convene there and enjoy the benefits we used to; the staff are quite ready to make it known that we are secondary and even tertiary to their preferred activities.

The search for an alternative thus continues.

+++ Venus on a Thursday

It was suggested that we continue to search for a new venue ourselves in person throughout the Thursdays of this month, rather than cause the monthly meetup to hop around month-to month.

This week Shehraz and I will be meeting to try and find another place with the right atmosphere on a Thursday evening which also would have accessibility options and presentation space.

We're also still following up on Edinburgh Uni / Teviot, and Codebase as options.

+++ Type of venue

While brainstorming last week we also thought about reading up on alternatives such as libraries (if any stay open to run evening events/programmes) and local community centres.

This brings a question back - do we really need the venue to be a pub? A few raised hands when we discussed this in person last year indicated that there was a preference for this, but I'd like to suggest we reconsider that with regards to aligning our activities with talks... we can always move on to a nearby pub afterwards.

>From Codebase notably, there's the Blue Blazer and The Chanter close by.

+++ Day of meetup

Finally, we might benefit from re-considering what evenings we want to convene altogether.

We tried to move the evening at the Southsider but it turned out they had events on every evening which put a stop to that. A change in venue might also be well served by a change of evening. First/Second/Third/Fourth Mon/Wed/Tues/Thu of the month?

+++

I'll have to gather all these thoughts into polls, but there's the lay of the land on this front.

We still have Ross scheduled to talk in March, so let's hope we'll have found our new home by then..!

Tai

===
Tai Kedzierski
Linux Operations and Deployments Engineer

RHCSA # 170-060-834<https://www.redhat.com/rhtapps/services/verify?certId=170-060-834>

I use LibreOffice<https://www.libreoffice.org/> , a free, Freedom-respecting replacement for MS Office

Open Source Free Software is a matter of liberty, not price.
https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software
--
EdLUG mailing list
EdLUG at lists.edlug.org.uk<mailto:EdLUG at lists.edlug.org.uk>
https://lists.edlug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/edlug
--
EdLUG mailing list
EdLUG at lists.edlug.org.uk<mailto:EdLUG at lists.edlug.org.uk>
https://lists.edlug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/edlug

--
EdLUG mailing list
EdLUG at lists.edlug.org.uk<mailto:EdLUG at lists.edlug.org.uk>
https://lists.edlug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/edlug
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.edlug.org.uk/pipermail/edlug/attachments/20190116/01097838/attachment.html>