2008/12/1 Marco Chiesa chiesa.marco@gmail.com:
For an AGM, I believe the priority should go to having as many people as possible, particularly this being the first one.
Hear, hear. (sorry, this was just to prove to Thomas that I do manage, when I'm sitting in front of a real computer)
In Switzerland, we held the founding assembly in Olten which is a traditional transport hub in Switzerland - in fact, in the restaurant of the train station, probably more associations have been founded (including the Swiss Alpine Club) than anywhere else. We chose the restaurant both for this "record of history" and because it is very central for many parts of Switzerland (granted, not all).
The first annual assembly was then held in Lucerne, which is literally the centre of Switzerland (or rather, the town closest is).
For the second annual assembly, we then chose Lausanne in the French-speaking west of Switzerland, which was also done to "make a point", as we have had several events in German-speaking (central/eastern) Switzerland, one big event in Italian-speaking (south) Switzerland but none really in the Romandie. Notably, there were then quite many people from the French-speaking region attending, even a couple who were not yet members, while also many of our German-speaking members (and yes, they are still by large a majority) attended.
Conclusion/Suggestion: Try to find a transport hub (there I know too less about UK public transport to make a specific suggestion), which needn't necessarily be London, just a place where most people can get to by train / bus in the least amount of time and with the best connections. Try then to find for the second AGM (I know, this is far away...) again a central place, but somewhere else than the first time (well, okay, 2010 is special, if you do have a Wikimania in Oxford you might strongly consider just holding the AGM during Wikimania at Oxford) and after the third year, you can really get started with "regionalising", i.e. having AGMs somewhere not technically central in order to attract members from regions where you don't have a strong membership base yet (Edinburgh, Cardiff, why not Belfast...). You might want to stop somewhere, though, before you hold AGMs on the Channel Islands ;-)
Regards, Michael