[plug] October Installfest

[Harry McNally]

Hello

Our last Collins Street Installfest for 2026 has been announced for 31 October 
on this list.

Reflecting on the last event, we had three new people invited by PLUG list 
participants but no people that I am aware of from the general advertising 
that was done.

If PLUG referrals is the most effective way to reach new users then may I 
suggest that we have just over a week if you would like to invite people to 
try Linux at the Installfest.

I know Wyatt and the committee have been using some of the Canning Library 
meetups for Installfests so it would be good to see if there is anything we 
can learn from those days too.

Thanks also to Chris McCormack and Greg Orange for material and financial 
support; we still have all of the USB install drives and donations have helped 
us keep doing what we do.

I had another question for feedback:

If we provide installations then advice and support via the PLUG list could be 
offered. At some point I suggested to Nick B that we make a new support list 
for Installfest participants but Nick rightly observed it would be yet another 
list to subscribe to. So the RFC is whether people are happy to welcome very 
new users onto the PLUG list ? I met up with someone at the last Installfest 
who reminded me that back in the day they admitted they lurked on PLUG but 
were reluctant to post because the posts were at a high technical level. I 
don't think any responses on PLUG have been "RTFM!" or similar dismissal but 
I'd be interested to know how list participants feel about getting first-steps 
questions on PLUG.

On themes for the day, I don't have one on our planning emails but I know 
Jasper was considering a Pi as a network installer of many distributions that 
he liked to promote and John McCabe-Dansted offered to demonstrate his Linux 
Services for Linux (LSL) project. If anyone has some project work they'd like 
to share that would be a welcome too :-)

I had best get a move on now and create the Announcement page for the day.

All the best
Harry