>>>I agree whole heartedly. The same can be said for many User Groups. Having been Program Chair the last 2 years, it is a bear to get different speakers without paying for someone to travel to your area. If I don't have a guest speaker flying in from somewhere, my speaker pool is about 3 people including me.
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>>Yes, sadly the same is true for us in the Cleveland area. If we don't hacve someone coming in, it's usually down to Gary, Marcia or me (of course we do use the User Group to 'test' and rehearse our conference sessions so it cuts both ways). But we rarely get more than a dozen people nowadays - and as for getting someone to volunteer to do a presentation...
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>Unfortunately, I suspect there's an unintended consequence happening in some groups, too. When you and Marcia do most of the speaking in Cleveland, and Dallas brings in big names frequently, and Houston has EPS to count on, etc., I think it can be very intimidating for people who haven't been published and aren't experienced speakers to volunteer.

I agree. In the Netherlands I joined the User Group in 1990 or so. We had meetings with speakers who often knew far less than a whole bunch of the listeners. Vivid discussions, during and after the presentations, were the consequence and people got really acquainted to each other. We had real debate, but also friendly feelings towards each other.
After a couple of years the meetings got more professional. Big names, even from the other side of the ocean, were flown in and they gave real lectures. (I vividly remember Steven Black, lecturing about Design Patterns; a great presentation, that almost no one fully understood.) The listeners became, indeed, listeners and the vivid discussions ended.


>Most of us who are regular speakers now started out speaking at user groups. We need to find a way to encourage members who haven't spoken before to give it a try.
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>My first Fox presentation was a mini-session at the Philly group, though I had years of teaching experience before that. Three of us each spoke for 20 or 30 minutes. I think this is a really good way to get people to speak. The idea of presenting one item briefly is a lot less scary than trying to fill 1.5-2 hours. I'd like to see every FUG set aside one or two meetings a year for mini-presentations, with an understanding that they'll be done by folks other than the regular speakers.

This sounds like a splendid idea to me. However, I wonder, how many developers will attend? What is the motivation to go and give attention to someone who possibly knows less about vfp than you yourself?

Anyway.. these are not trivial points and in fact we're talking about the future of the vfp-community here.