[Sheflug] Free Software Student Society

[Chris Warburton <chriswarbo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings to everyone on this list. I am Christopher Warburton, a
student here at Sheffield University, and have recently created a Free
Software Society as part of the Student's Union. I would very much like
to see collaboration between the FSS and local LUGs for informing,
educating and supporting current and potential users of various pieces
of Free Software, as well as the ability to make events like
installfests larger than is currently feasable individually.

Aside from that I want to join the LUG personally anyway, as I have
never been in one before (my hometown is in the middle of nowhere and
therefore doesn't have much in the way of LUGs).

A little about myself:
I'm 18 year old first-year studying Physics with Computer Science. My
programming skills aren't particularly fantastic, as I only know a
little Java and Python (along with bash of course), but I have been
complimented on my artistic and writing abilities before. I currently
use Ubuntu on my laptop and would say I have converted around 5 people
to GNU/Linux in the past three years since I first scrapped Windows
(which I hated during the couple of years that I used it, since it
didn't have the same nice feeling that Amigas have given me since 1993).
I try to help out the community as best I can, writing quite a bit of
documentation on the Ubuntu help wiki and hanging out in IRC channels.
Before creating the society I have done a little leafletting (some
Rockbox/iPod Linux/Xiph.org leaflets to inform people about nice
alternatives to Apple's firmware, and on the day before Vista launched I
was handing out flyers in front of the Student Union building). Outside
Free Software I like extreme metal music, drawing and writing. Now I am
president of the Free Software Society and am trying to plant some roots
down to give the FSS a good base to work from, which includes contacting
you guys.

A little about the society:
It is primarily focused toward students, but that is mainly a legal
thing as money granted to the society must be directed solely at
students. However, money raised independently of the Student Union can
be spent on pretty much anything, allowing us to be a little more
inclusive in our efforts. The main focus of the FSS is to offer support
to people using Free Software, as the knowledge of University-related
help should reduce people's reluctance to mess with their systems. Along
with that there should hopefully be some installfests, demonstrations
and things like that. This is mainly targetted towards non-technical
types so may be tedious for those already in the know, but either way
you can find the website at: http://fss.union.shef.ac.uk . If you want
to keep informed about what we're doing then you can either email me or
fss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx saying so, since I don't want to flood this list
with unrelated stuff.

I have subscribed to this list, and apparently an admin will review my
request or something, so I'll hopefully be hearing replies soon. I also
plan to go to the next meeting on the 24th so you can meet me in person.
Thanks for reading such a long email :)
Chris


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