Hi Derek,
Sorry I didn't respond sooner but I am a maybe for this Friday - I have work commitments on Friday until 6pm but may be able to come slightly late if it finishes on time. If you can PM your mobile details I can let you know and find out where you are having dinner.
Cool, will do.
A quick Google turned up the Adelaide council run Box Factory community centre in the city (59 regent st south). Looks pretty cheap, although we would need to check out if it is suitable for computers first (power, tables, etc)! They also have two other sites (one in the city and one in North Adelaide). They also offer data projector hire too which could be very useful for demonstrations to avoid everyone crowding around one computer....
More info here:
http://www.adelaidecitycouncil.com/community/community-centres/box-factory-community-centre/#
The room charge rates are below - at $32 per session (up to 4 hours) in the regent Room (plus $15 public liability insurance fee for group bookings - not sure if we have to pay this), it is not too expensive. There are cheaper options too ($22) for something smaller in the same building:
http://www.adelaidecitycouncil.com/community/community-centres/box-factory-community-centre/hire1/
We would probably need internet access through the coordination of the internet offered in the community centre with some extra switches in the room for connections between computers for sharing files, etc. Not sure if there is a fee for using their internet service (I am guessing there is), but we could find out easily enough. At the base level to keep costs low initially (ie. without internet) we can just bring USB flash drives for file sharing!
Remember of course that assuming everyone arrives on time it takes 30 minutes to setup our equipment in the room and a similar time 30-40 minutes to pack up and clean up prior to leaving. This leaves around 2.5 hours of Commodore and Amiga playing time. The less stuff we have to setup/tear down, the more time we get to muck around.
Realistically looking at the time needed to coordinate people's availability with families and so on - I am guessing monthly or every two months is the best bet, with commitment to a minimum number of people going (and commit to paying) to attend two weeks or so prior to book and pay for the room each time. We need to advertise GTG's across more than just Amiga.org also if we want to attract all Amiga interested Adelaideans to go. Amigaworld.net, amigans.net, etc.
Hmm, looks really good but considering our busy family/work lives etc etc I was thinking our BYO Amiga meets might be better held on a saturday evening and the Box factory seems to be a week day only deal? (it's also only open till 9pm) I agree that bi-monthly would prolly be the minimum gap for proper meet's too as It's hard enuf to find a good day/time as it is. :p
what do others think?
I have advertised this GTG on AmiBay, EAB and Lemon64/Amiga as well as here but Amiga.org does seem to have become the default discussion place for Adelaide folks.
Btw, considering we all have 3G/4G phones with wifi hot-spot functions im not sure getting net access with the room would be a necessity?
My concern is getting enough people going every month (not just the first few meetings) to cover the ongoing room hiring costs. If we can't get the minimum people needed to fund the cost of booking the room in a particular month, then we could just organise a lunch time catch up somewhere central instead of a room for that month.
IMO No one should have to pay out extra money out of their own pocket (on top of the agreed required per meeting payment) to book the room every month or so (if there is not enough people going). It is a bottomless pit that ends badly. Another option might be to sell initial group memberships to the core group planning to go every time to fund the costs of hiring the room for the first 12 months, commit to hiring the room monthly or every two months and see how things go with potentially extra people coming over time (and with regular meetings scheduled this is more likely) to allow us to do more things in the future?
As you suggest, I would love the GTG to be somewhere we can bring our Amigas to have some fun doing Amiga stuff as a group for a few hours! On a Saturday or Sunday afternoon would be ideal and probably easier for most people to make some time for it. I do miss that kind of group interaction and hope it can happen! So I made some suggestions of a central venue, but of course you may find better options - I didn't spend a lot of time on it!
Over to you and the other Adelaideans - is there enough interest in this kind of GTG?
Catcha,
Epsilon
Agreed, im certainly not in a position to fund these GTG's but would be fine with say $10 + Take away food costs.
Btw, I have offspring #2 due in 4 weeks so I'd like someone to take over the mantle of lead GTG organiser for at least few months after this meet as im likely to be even more sleep deprived than I am now. :p Any volunteers?
