Lincoln LUG held its first real-life meeting on Tuesday 27th September at Lincoln Bowl. There were 9 people in attendance; myself and hubby, Philip; Adrian and his wife, Linda; Neal, Kev and 3 members of Hull LUG, Steve, Jon and Dave. Lincoln Bowl made us all very welcome, allowing us to completely re-arrange the furniture in their bar area, and they even produced a mains power extension lead for us to plug into and recharge (our computers!)

Adrian had brought along his wife’s laptop and explained that he was having problems auto-connecting to his home wi-fi without having to keep inputting the password every time. The laptop was duly passed over and fault diagnosis ensued but it was unable to be tested until Adrian got the laptop home. Adrian also announced that it was his 65th birthday, so we all wished him a Happy Birthday (no, we didn’t sing!), we bought him a non-alcoholic beer (as he was driving) and then offered him a fresh Linux install of Linux Mint

The Hull LUG guys had brought along their tech, and Philip and I had a drool over Steve’s Kindle. Linda was also interested in the Kindle, as she is an avid reader. Dave then got out his Android Tablet and fresh drooling commenced. There were numerous conversations going on throughout the whole group including Thinkpads, The Big Bang Theory, an exchange of knowledge on must-see Sci Fi programmes, our various real-life jobs, how we got into Linux, installing Qwit as a Linux Twitter client, a hands-up on who was an active KDE user (no-one was!) and much, much more.

Doing what we do best ... geeking out with friends!

I did get a chance to pose my questions about how often the Lincoln LUG should meet, when and where, and the format of the meetings. Everyone was pretty easy-going with the decision making but we finally agreed on holding Lincoln LUG meetings on the 3rd Wednesday of every month. We discussed how a last-minute change of venue had deterred a couple of LUG members from attending due to transport issues, and I agreed that I would source a more central venue for our meetings. We also discussed that the format of the meetings should take the form of an informal social gathering at a pub in central Lincoln.

All in all, I think our first meeting was a great success and I hope that the other members who joined us enjoyed themselves too. I want to thank everyone who attended, especially those who had driven over an hour and a half to join us. I had a wonderful evening, meeting new friends and old, and am looking forward to the next meeting.