[PVRCNC] Meeting location change?

[Pete Soper]

The chapter's meeting location has been heavily biased for members located in 
southern Wake county and this has been the situation for most of the chapter's 
six and a half years of existence. This was of course mostly a side effect of 
where most of the chapter's original members live (or lived).

This subject has come up many many times at meetings over the years. I raised 
the subject of "location parity" myself quite a few times, trying to test the 
waters to see if folks were getting tired of hiking long distances. Invariably 
the response was "no problem." However I stopped asking about this quite a 
while ago and of course it was no longer my place to be concerned on behalf of 
the chapter when I was no longer secretary.

In the meantime the membership has greatly increased and there may now be a 
majority coming from "elsewhere." (We have some latt/long data and it would
be fairly easy to compute the "chapter center" by the way). Although it will 
inevitably cause a shift in attendence in both directions in my opinion facing 
up to the changes in our membership is the right thing to do.

Ryans in Cary is surely not the only suitable location in the state. As NX9T
made clear we need to start with a discussion about our willingness to 
accomodate the folks that live a long way from Cary: everything else about
where, how often, etc is just a detail (although as K2AV made clear, some
of these details are quite important).

Some of you may remember Merri, AB0MV. Merri couldn't drive to meetings and
I ferried her to a couple from the far side of Chapel Hill. Ouch! Swimming both
ways along I40 gave me an appreciation for what some of you guys go through to
get to our meetings.  Although I know it will mean arranging to take off a bit 
early from work to get there I'm willing to hike up or over for the sake of 
seeing more of the folks to the north and west (oops, or east, forgot about 
N4AF, K7GM etc).

Finally, we have friends in other chapters and some of the chapters have been
around a lot longer than us. Perhaps they have some words of wisdom to share?

And finally, I'm sorry I missed the meeting last week, my brain just jumped
out of gear. And I've got to be in Seattle for OOPSLA next month but look 
forward to the December meeting, wherever it is!

Regards,
Pete AD4L