[ubuntu-uk] Starting an IT workshop

[Rob Beard]

On 28/06/12 22:49, Andres wrote:
> I have just been to a local neighbourhood community [0] meeting and 
> thought ann IT workshop would help out. The group already does 
> workshops relating to gardening, bicycle maintenance and such.
>
> My question is: how do I propose it in your experience?
> What I have for the moment is an old laptop,
> I would like to order a bunch ubuntu CDs if I can to hand out
> I know my way around computers but I'm not a professional but I think 
> I have a lot of patience explaining IT stuff to children and adults.
> I like talking to people about using libreoffice instead of MS office, 
> ubuntu instead of windows,...
> The community can offer an enclosed place "The little House" or the 
> library. Both can take about 10 people.
>
> Would it be best to start with something simple? or look alliance with 
> some other community that already exists and are looking for a place 
> to do some sort of mini workshop. This is what they did with the 
> bicycle workshop.
>
> So I was asked to source some info to take back to the meeting for 
> next month. Can someone point me in the right direction?
>
> [0] http://www.hamunitedgroup.org.uk
>
>

I'd maybe suggest looking around for a local LUG and joining their 
mailing list and see if there are any other interested parties.  That's 
pretty much what we've done in Devon & Cornwall, a couple of us have got 
together and done things, it's easier when working with others as you 
don't have to do everything yourself and you can all give up a bit of time.

Maybe rather than doing the hard sell on Ubuntu straight away, possibly 
start encouraging people to take away copies of The Open Disc (I think 
it's available from www.theopendisc.org) which they can use on their 
Windows PCs.  It has a wide variety of stuff such as Firefox, 
LibreOffice (although it may still be OpenOffice.org), TuxPaint etc.  
Maybe let them take away a live CD or live DVD to play with although you 
may find the occasional user who has some exotic bit of kit which won't 
play friendly with Linux.  I found this with someone who had a USB ADSL 
modem and I had to spend 2 hours over at their place tethered off my 
phone trying to get their modem working, other examples are some older 
budget laptops with less common chipsets... SIS and VIA chipsets come to 
mind.  Saying that I find that most machines these days maybe have 
Intel, AMD or NVidia chipsets and just seem to work.

Anyway, good luck... maybe there might be other members on this mailing 
list near you who might be able to offer a hand too :-)

Rob
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