>How are you getting these speakers to LA? I am interested because I am Programs Co-Chair of our UG and have tried to entice many heavy-hitters to our meetings with zero luck. Do you have a budget to pay for their travel expenses or are they just going to be in the area and are volunteering their time? Thanks.

Our Foxpro Users and Developers Group in Chicago has tried to take advantage of our location (hub of a lot of industrial and commercial cities) We can attract speakers within a 4 hour driving distance. We're trying to feature well known speakers from within the arc around the tip of Lake Michigan. We had Mike Helland from Minnesota, Rick Borup from Champaign, Sawyer & Schummer are coming from Detroit on March 5th and we hoping to schedule Cathy Pountney from Grand Rapids later this year.

Supplementing the outside talent we're trying to encourage and develop local experts (this is after all a decent sized metro area). The talks don't have to always be at the highest level of expertise. If they are well prepared they can be jumping off places for very interesting discussion. Sometimes a member will just hook up a lap top to the internet and show what he is doing and it will be as good or better than a demo by an outsider.

Another aspect on nurturing local initiative has been to begin a pro bono collaborative project for a not for profit organization. Check out our initial work at www.kwh.wikis.com.

There is a chicken/egg relationship between the attraction and the members. You can't draw members if the content is not interesting. Conversely you can't get good speakers unless you have a good group of dues-paying members who can foot the bill for a motel room or mileage or a plane ticket. We try to value every member-- keep them informed of coming events and supplied with minutes of meetings in case they miss. Build up the email list and keep looking for pockets of Fox Pro activity. Fox Pro shops are a source of attendance and the companies sometimes can make a slightly larger donation in case the treasury is low. In the final analysis the group is more important than the attraction, but content cannot be neglected.