On 22 September 2014 13:53, rexx <rexx@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

We have pubs in Oxford, Coventry, Cambridge, Manchester and now Liverpool that are usually relatively quiet and uncrowded, so conversation is much easier. Dan Haigh and I have done informal initial training a couple of times in the pub - it's easy enough one-to-one and you can get a new editor started in 20-30 mins.

On a point of detail, the Cambridge meetup is in a brasserie-type place, rather than a pub (we head off to a pub later if folk want). And it starts middle of the afternoon, which is between midday and early evening peak times.

The pub-or-not debate seems quite significant to me, as the community-and-how-to-grow-it debate in microcosm. If you understand why a meetup that starts in a pub will always be in a pub, you have a clue why entrenched cultural factors in the online community also seem quite stubborn.

Charles