CSLUG Is Looking for Sponsors

[James_McN]

It was great to get back to in person in June - I thoroughly enjoyed it (even with some new streaming challenges!) and appreciate NI UK for hosting it. We had 7 people in person and around 20 online which was great.

I hope to continue to have these in the hybrid format we had if it is able to however NI have stated that they are no longer able to support the user group.

So I have to ask for sponsors. There are two opportunities:

• Venue - We will need somewhere to meet! It doesn't have to be Newbury but I think somewhere around Oxford or Reading could work equally well. This could either be a cash sponsorship (a quick search for venue hire runs in the £100-200 range) or a company with room to accomodate us (10 - 15 in person potentially).
• Food - We run the meetings over lunch and provide food so we get a good opportunity to chat and connect. I'm new to all of this but a budget of around £50-75 depending on attendance seems reasonable.

The venue is the most critical piece. I was able to cover the food this month and others have volunteered for that already which could be done on a rotation. However we are mostly small companies without a space that large where I'm hoping this may be the easiest option for a larger company in the area.

For all of these as well I'm not thinking that we are looking for a regular commitment but rotating it would work to (I know of other groups that rotate the venue and it works really well to get new faces in). I think the way it can work is that the previous sponsor can have first refusal on the next CSLUG and we can see if there are others that want to help to and decide whether to rotate it around.

So if you think you can help get in touch on here or email me at james@wiresmithtech.com. Once we have an idea of potential venues then I can put a date in for September.

[swatts]

The downstairs of our (rustic) office can be re-purposed to hold a few people (about 15) - we'd need to invest in some seating and our projector is less capable than NI's. I'll measure the space. Our internet speed is rustic, although our 4G is magically fast!

My view is that we can use this as a fall-back position and without much notice, but we'd need to invest a little bit of money (we're willing to do that)

Catering can done by some of the nice country pubs in the local area 😊

Advantages :- Rustic, can always be used with little arrangement, free, independent.

Disadvantages :- Rustic, especially in the winter (although our log burner is excellent), some investment needed in equipment, size limited.