[GNUz] The monthly freenix workshops

[Rik Tindall]

Hi all, an end-of-year summary re the monthly freenix workshops held at 
South Learning Centre <http://www.library.christchurch.org.nz/South/>.

It's an excellent ICT venue - thank you Christchurch City Council.

We reliably have a half dozen or more people attending, keeping the 
initiative alive long-term. And it is a different half dozen people 
every time, so we've met lots of *nix users and newbies over the years.

Last week some discussion got going which we hope will lead to the 
restoration of technically-oriented club presentations in early 2011. We 
have a nucleus of expertise around 'Linux for schools' and interest in 
Arduino that should suffice for some robotics group (?) activity towards 
a community project. <http://www.arduino.cc> <http://arduino.org> 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino>
<http://www.rout.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/chchrobotics>

The SCL suite seats 33 and has overhead projection ready, so we may as 
well use this to maximum utility. 15-25 was the usual attendance range 
when CLUG stopped meeting at St Albans Community Resource Centre (which 
became an earthquake casualty since). So we are open to offers if list 
members and readers want to float some insight in front of an audience.

Information about the freenix workshops is maintained at
http://www.infohelp.co.nz/glu.html - content will be revised and 
moderated over the summer, suggestions welcome (off-list).

The next Sydenham GNU/Linux Users' workshop, is 2 February (7.30-9.30pm 
first Wednesday of each month, February to December), at the South 
Learning Centre, South Christchurch Library (rear door), 66 Colombo 
Street, Beckenham.

We mostly use the computer suite there for a liveCD BYO-distro show & 
tell, knowledge exchange & tuition. Ubuntu is the default distro used 
and available on the machines otherwise - free/open CDs; an annual home 
for http://www.SoftwareFreedomDay.org

Freenix workshops present an opportunity to meet other *nix users, have 
installation questions answered, get on-line security tips, etc. etc.

All welcome.

Kind regards, Season's Greetings,

Rik Tindall