[conspire] [volunteers] How does changing CABAL to 1-9 pm sound?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Daniel Gimpelevich (daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us):

> That may have been when CABALs began at the CoffeeNet, but that was
> definitely not the current CABAL. When that venue was no longer available,
> the current arrangement was substituted in haste, and as more and more
> attendees began to realize that it was a permanent arrangement (which,
> luckily, I didn't for several years), they stopped attending. 

> History is now repeating itself. 
[...] 
> Now, the more distance-challenged SVLUG installfest regulars, including
> core volunteers such as Margaret, may be expected to stop attending, just
> like CABAListas did seven years ago.

Yes, your point is very well taken that the venue -- at the near edge of
San Mateo County -- is less than ideal for SVLUG, relative to one more
central to Santa Clara County such as in Sunnyvale, North San Jose, or
the Warm Spring District baylands (SW Fremont), all places where SVLUG
has had installfest venues in the past.

In fact, I just got through stressing that it's less than ideal in that
sense, as you may recall.

OTOH, on reflection it's actually a bit _less_ remote to the central
Silicon Valley area than was the UMAX cafeteria in Warm Springs, a very
successful longtime venue.  (I know very well what a pain in the neck
_that_ place was to get to by car, and how the only public transit
access was 40 minutes on the AC Transit #22 line bus from Fremont BART,
with no practical VTA options whatsoever, because my employer later
moved to a building next door.)

The _most_ beloved SVLUG installfest venue was probably the somewhat cramped
space in the back of Computer Literacy's N. First Street / Brokaw store,
which I think people liked even better than nearby Accent Technology
(the computer training place), that came later.  The bookstore location
was really great, and -- well -- you were inside the best
computer-related bookstore in the world.  The major minus, aside from
relative crampedness, was that the access to Internet bandwidth really,
really sucked, more than the minor suckage of my house's aDSL.

So, I certainly strongly encourage finding and considering additional 
candidate venues, ones closer to central Silicon Valley, preferably
sites that can provide major bandwidth as Cisco and Google did and mine
does not, and that are right next to public transit (preferably the VTA
Light Rail), as opposed to being a two-mile walk (or pickup) from
CalTrain, as my house is.