Re: [Sheflug] Free Software Student Society

[Richard Ibbotson <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris 

Hi, there. Hope you get some help from this "local" list.


> 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).

It does all of the things that the FSS does that you have set up.  So, 
not much point in you duplicating work but you can if you wan to.

> A little about myself:
> I'm 18 year old first-year studying Physics with Computer Science.

I was a student member of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the 
Institute of Physics.  I'm something to do with the Royal 
Astronomical Society just now. 

> 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, 

Hmmm... you got somewhere then :)  Lot of people don't get as far as 
that.  Advocacy is a very difficult thing to follow or follow 
through.  Lot easier to sit quietly in a corner and say nothing.

I've written for magazines for about six years now...

http://www.linuxformat.co.uk
http://www.linux-magazine.co.uk
http://www.linuxuser.co.uk

> 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.

Yes.  That's your problem.  The University have it all worked out so 
that only students and only money from students is allowed inside 
their organisation.  So, LUGs are not allowed or talked about because 
they don't have a University logo on them or University legal team 
crawling all over them.

> 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.

I've done years of this and find that something like 1 in 100 or 1 in 
1000 people take any notice of anything to do with computers in this 
country.  In other countries you get mobbed with a large crowd of 
people.


-- 
Richard

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