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I'd have to agree for the most part with what's been said-- I'd like to see
NELUG cater to a wider audience... However, this is really where the purpose of
NELUG gets called into question.
If we want a bunch of us to get together and talk about Lego (your standard
NELUG meeting so far)-- well, I don't want a bunch of young children running
around. In addition to that, children don't usually have a mode of
transportation to get anywhere, and aren't allowed out late at night, etc.
Plus it would probably mean that if anything DID happen (accidental injuries,
etc., someone falls down the stairs at someone's house, whatever), I DON'T want
NELUG to be held responsible. Things like that get tricky when you're dealing
with minors.
However, I don't think that's the sole purpose behind NELUG. Another aspect of
NELUG is informational. We have a mailing list (although not highly used at the
moment, now that the Mindfest has died down, etc) that gets sent out informing
our members of events in the area, etc, etc. Here, being a minor doesn't
present a real problem. Sending out a newsletter via email (no addresses or
phone numbers being given out or anything) is pretty safe, I'd say. The only
possible problem that it might have would be irresponsible kids using the
mailing list for trivial things... but that can be controlled, I'd say.
The other big purpose to NELUG is to help sponsor larger events. We haven't
really done anything YET that's been strictly NELUG, but it's certainly in our
future (I hope). Here's where it can also get tricky. If we do something like
take a trip down to Enfield, it's probably similar to a "regular" meeting--
kids would need transportation, parental approval, and there are still
liability issues... However, if we get a huge confrence room for a day (or
something like that) and decide to sponsor a building event, I think I'd like
to welcome kids... it's also something that parents probably wouldn't mind
attending, even, if it's only for a few hours-- and that helps address the
other problems... and to help with liability, etc, we could have an application
form for parents/guardians to sign with the appropriate legal information.
Doing that for things like trips to Enfield/Regular meetings seems like a lot
more effort, though-- more trouble than it's worth.
Hence, it's tricky. I'd LIKE to have younger audiences be able to use us in the
informational sense, but that even brings up problems. If a 9 year old gets an
email that there's a NELUG meeting, and doesn't understand that it's going to
be us mostly talking about lego, displaying models, etc., rather than sitting
down and building/playing games, etc., and s/he shows up to the meeting--
well.. that's a problem.
So the solution up until now has been to only have an adult audience, with the
intent to be to cater more to younger audiences when we are a larger group.
Hence it's been a "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it". And now it
looks like we've seen the first signs of that bridge, especially with all the
kids who saw us at the Mindfest, and potentially the ones who are seeing our
display at the Construction Site... But I'm still not sure what the best way is
to cross it yet.
DaveE
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: NELUG Turns 50!!
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| (...) see (...) purpose of (...) I'll start off my saying that everything was very well said, Dave. Although I am still 2 1/3 years away from being considered an AFOL, I can see why you wanted to set up AFOL group, partly because of circumstances (...) (25 years ago, 16-Nov-99, to lugnet.loc.us.me, lugnet.org.us, lugnet.loc.us.ma.bos)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: NELUG Turns 50!!
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| As an advisor of a church senior high youth group, I am definitely aware of the issues... Ryan raises a very good point though. One of the things that we AFOLs should bend over backwards is to create a support structure for teens so they do not have (...) (25 years ago, 16-Nov-99, to lugnet.loc.us.me, lugnet.org.us, lugnet.loc.us.ma.bos)
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