[LGM] LGM in 2020 and 2019 (for that matter)

[Gregory Pittman]

It's encouraging to have such interest in those submitting proposals for
2020.
I had originally planned to attend LGM 2018, but became increasingly
discouraged at the slow planning, its shallowness, and the apparent lack
of experience and depth of the planners. Ultimately, I didn't want to go
to the expense to set up a trip to attend something that might have
ended up being more like a local computer users' meeting.

The hardest thing to get from proposals is whether the planner(s) have
any sense of what it takes to satisfy the needs of LGM, in terms of
having enough spaces available for all the aspects of the meeting, the
internet access, and reasonable physical access from wherever housing
might be found by those attending. It's nice to stimulate local interest
in Libre Graphics software, but we know that aspect is bound to be
limited and is not really the point of LGM anyway. There is also some
assurance to have a connection with some local college or school, but
there isn't anything automatic about what that support consists of.

One important way to help allay worries is having a robust and actively
updated website very early in the process which can demonstrate the
breadth and depth of the planning. The website for 2018 was quite
shallow, even at the very end. Perhaps there ought to be some kind of
guidebook that could be put together by those who have run successful
and well-attended meetings in the past.

Greg