Actually, there are several RUG's trying to make a go of it.  Both FLORUG
(Florida) and SERUG (South East) have injected quite a lot of effort into
revitalizing their meetings.  For the past few years I have participated in
a special System Performance conference hosted by these RUG's.  Each one
has had significant success in attracting 100-150 individuals.

I believe that the reason for the success of these meetings has been the
fact that they have focused in on a particular topic and made it appealing
across our most relevant platforms (MPE, HP-UX and NT).  They also
attempted to attract a fairly divergent group of speakers, each with his or
her own constituency.

The bottom line is that if RUG's are going to be successful, they have to
"think outside the box" and try to become more relevant.  They can't simply
say "here's our meeting, please come".  They have to identify a need, match
solutions to that need and market the result.  Most people don't have time
for anything else.

Bill Lancaster

At 01:52 PM 6/17/98 -0400, Paul Edwards wrote:
>We have had the same problem in North Texas. So we have not had a meeting
>for over a year. I think the RUG in Tulsa OK also shut down for the same
>reason. It seems to be a growing problem. BARUG just cancelled their
>meeting due to low registration. The only RUG I know that is active and
>growing is MARUG. We all get the same speakers but it seems to be a local
>users attitude that makes them go to meetings. I don't know what the answer
>is if the local users don't want to attend or be on the Board.
>
>Alan AMBERS wrote:
>
>> Hello everyone -
>>
>> Yesterday, I attended an excellent 3/4 day meeting at our local BWRUG
>> (Baltimore Washington Regional Users Group).  It was on LAN switching
>> and gigabit eithernet vs. ATM.  Very helpful for our shop since we have
>> over 2000 PCs that connect to five HP3000s, seven HP9000s 13 Novell
>> Servers and our first NT server comming up really soon.
>>
>> Only 12 or so people atteneded this seminar.  Four were from my
>> organization.
>>
>>
>
>
>
>--
>*****************************************************************
>* Paul Edwards                     HP 3000 Certified Consultant *
>* Paul Edwards & Associates                 1506 Estates Way    *
>* Email: [log in to unmask]                   Carrollton TX 75006 *
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>
>