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Subject: 
NELUG meeting report from 12/16/1999
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.loc.us.ma, lugnet.loc.us.ma.bos, lugnet.loc.us.ct, lugnet.loc.us.ri, lugnet.loc.us.vt, lugnet.loc.us.nh, lugnet.loc.us.me, lugnet.org.us
Followup-To: 
lugnet.org.us
Date: 
Fri, 17 Dec 1999 15:29:28 GMT
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All follow-ups sent to LUGNET.ORG.US

Unfortunately I forgot my list of names for everyone that attended so I will
not include names in this post :(.  I did want to make a post this morning
however because of the interest in at least one of the subjects we discussed.

Other than Mindfest this was by far our largest turnout for a meeting so far.
We had 13 members attend the meeting 6 of whom were first timers including 2
members of our Connecticut contingent!  This accounts for almost 23% of our
membership which I think is "wicked" awsome :-).

A majority of the folks at the meeting were Robotic's folks and much of the
early discussion was focused towards Mindstorms.  Unfortuantly thats about all
I feel comfortable saying for now.  Hopefully we will be able to give more
details eventually.

We have also decided to do another Window display at The Construction Site in
Waltham MA ( http://www.constructiontoys.com ).  This setup will be focused on
a Castle theme and will include many MOC's as well as some of the new
production sets.  There is still quite a bit of planning to be done on this so
we don't all build the same thing and end up with 20 towers and no city/town
stuff.  I think we probably need to start a discussion just on this subject so
that we can at least get a start on something then at some point in January or
so we can have another meeting to see how things are going and try and set a
date for setup at The Construction Site.

Our Connecticut members also were kind enough to bring along some 2000 LEGO
sets to the meeting.  We all had a lot of fun looking at the boxes and checking
out the models.  Overall it looks like 2000 is going to be a good year and a
step in the right direction for TLC.


Our one serious discussion was focused on whether or not we should allow under
18 year olds at our meetings.  First let me say that this has been a hard
decision for many of us and our decision in no way reflects on any individual.
Our decision is that for general meetings they will remain as over 18
meetings.  I know this will disappoint some of you so I will try and tell you
our reasonings for our decision.

1.  Legalities - This has been discussed at length before and I don't want to
rehash that again.

2.  Our origional "Mission Statement" - NELUG was initially started with the
only goal to be to get AFOL's together in an environment that we could have
adult conversations about a hobby we share.  Please don't harp on me for the
wording here.  We know that you all share the same hobby and that most of you
are very mature and converse with Adults fine.  For more explination please see
#3.

3.  The snowball effect - If you make one exception where does it stop.  Say we
raised the age limit to 16+ well now we will have all of the 13+ people wanting
in and so on and so forth.  For us 18 is the best cutoff mainly because that is
the age where by U.S. law we are all considered Adults and responsible for our
own actions.  This is a relatively easy age cutoff for us to defend because of
that.

4.  We are not a babysitting service - OK don't throw stone's here we know you
don't need babysitters but once exceptions start being made this is where this
can lead.  We don't want to end up having parents dropping off their kids for a
couple of hours and expect us to monitor them for free.  This is not why NELUG
started and in my oppinion if this started happening many of the Adults in
NELUG would stop comming to meetings and we don't want that.

Now I hope you don't all think we are a bunch of mean Adults that don't want to
share but NELUG started for a reason and we all want to stick to that Mission.
We did decide however that when events like Mindfest happen in the future we
would love to have you all come and check-out everything that is there.  We
also decided that we may try and have some events in the future like a
"building day" where we would invite people of all ages.

We would also like to encourage all of those out there that are under 18 to
create your own group.  We even decided that you can use the NELUG name if it
would help you to name your group if you wanted a NELUG Jr. or something like
that.  There are a lot of services out there that provide free web hosting and
free mailing lists.  I would suggest starting up some discussions on LUGNET in
the local groups and LUGNET.ORG.US and get a group started.

Again please don't get to mad at us for our decision.  This does not mean that
we don't like to discuss LEGO with you or that we think less of you and your
ideas.  All this means is that we want to stick with our origional Mission
Statement and keep NELUG as 18+.


Thanks,



Eric Kingsley

The New England LEGO Users Group
http://www.nelug.org/



Message has 4 Replies:
  Re: NELUG meeting report from 12/16/1999
 
In message <FMw5p4.xL@lugnet.com>, "Eric Kingsley" writes: Our (...) I'm thinking, "Yow! That's an awful lot of boxes! What did they bring them in, a truck?" (...) Oh, _model_ _year_ 2000. Not two thousand sets. Now I get it. (...) Quite right--as a (...) (25 years ago, 17-Dec-99, to lugnet.org.us)
  Re: NELUG meeting report from 12/16/1999
 
(...) Hi, I would like to contribute a MOC or two. I think my current Roman Villa would fit in, and it's modular on 32x32 or 16x32 plates. It doesn't have a recent web page, but it has a big imposing entrance portico, an enclosed garden, stables, (...) (25 years ago, 20-Dec-99, to lugnet.org.us)
  New Castle TCS Window Project (was Re: NELUG meeting report from 12/16/1999)
 
(...) Here's an idea for the initial setup - I think we should use the old 'modular Castle'-type setup for the walls and towers: the walls being 1 wall piece high, connected with Technic pegs at specified heights, with the battlements looking a (...) (25 years ago, 22-Dec-99, to lugnet.org.us)
  Re: NELUG meeting report from 12/16/1999
 
(...) the (...) have (...) the (...) you (...) please see (...) you (...) this (...) for a (...) NELUG (...) Hi Eric, Just a suggestion, based on the policies of several R/C Aircraft organizations that I have belonged to over the years (where safety (...) (25 years ago, 4-Jan-00, to lugnet.org.us)

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