My Blog

May 6th First Thursday May 4, 2010

Another First Thursday coming up - so time for our "open house" meeting at the worknets chat room http://www.worknets.org/chat/base/home.php?arsc_language=english.

This is our plan for May 6th First Thursday.

Informal chat before and after the main session
We can chat informally before and after our main session, but in the main session we will focus on two set topics. If people arrive during the main session then our "usher" will greet them on behalf of all of us.

Set topics for discussion.
The plan is to select one topic at the start, and then reconsider our topic choice half way through. The first topic will reflect the interests of people who arrive first - and if they have already told me what they hope to discuss then so much the better.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but interesting probable topics are emerging. So far this week I have had discussions with two people who definitely plan to attend (Graham Knight of DIYsolar and BioDesign and Shubham Nagar - http://www.infoaxon.com/web/guest/team ). Their interests range from Appropriate power and biochar (Graham) to Open Source Applications, HIV/AIDS programmes, and comparisons between rural India and rural Africa (Shubham).

I will know who to expect from the Dadamac Nigeria team after our regular Wednesday Dadamac UK-Nigeria  team meeting. 

Joining in the discussion
  • Anyone can join in the discussion
  • People can type in at the same time - you do not have to wait to "take your turn"
  • It is okay to have some conversations in parallel, but please stick to the topic under discussion.
Follow up and looking forward
  • Towards the end of the session we will try to collect up Any Other Interests (topics we haven't had time to discuss)
  • We can carry these other interests forward for the next First Thursday meeting (June 3rd)
  • Alternatively we have additional Thursday meetings in May - "Topic Thursdays" - for people who want to continue discussing a particular topic and can agree on a date. 
Time: I have put the local start times below for the places that "First Thursday people" are most likely to log in from.

08.00 EDT Eastern Daylight Time
12.00 UTC Coordinated Universal Time
13.00 WAT West African Time
13.00 BST British Summer Time
14.00 CEST – Central European Summer Time
15.00 EAT East African Time
15.00 EEST East European Summer Time
17.30 IST - does that stand for Indian Standard Time I wonder - it is Delhi - for Vijay and Shubham
20.00 MYT (Kuala Lumpur for Dary)

My usual thanks to Andrius for making the chatroom available for us.

Pamela