[PLUG] Regular Guild Meetings on IRC

[Tejas Sanap]

Dear all,
In any FOSS community, IRC is an important channel of communication.
More discussions need to take place on the IRC channel. However, 
recent mailing list archives and IRC channel logs show that
the overall interaction among PLUG members is declining.
The immediate priority of PLUG should be to *attract new members*. 
In a city like Pune, this is a comparatively easy task.

Attracting new members becomes easier, if new people can interact 
with PLUG members and take part in discussions, before participating
in a PLUG-organized event.
The IRC channel is a great place for such things. Using IRC has the
following benefits for the members:
1. It opens doors for non-members from other IRC channels to join 
PLUG discussions without having to subscribe to the mailing list.
2. It opens the doors of many other communities which new (and, 
young) members can greatly benefit from.
3. Having informal small-talk improves the team-spirit and overall
cohesiveness of the community.
4. Senior members get a chance to have one-on-one with new members 
which will aid them in mentoring.

Thus, I am proposing holding *guild meetings* on *#pluggies* at 
Freenode, *every Saturday at 8:00 PM IST*. Everyone (member and 
non-member) is welcome to join. Topics of discussion for these 
meetings can be decided on the mailing list.

Holding *regular* guild meetings has the following benefits to the
community as an organization:
1. It increases the pace of planning for events.
2. It will set a routine for PLUG activities and it's members.
3. It encourages members and non-members to participate in 
discussions and thus, voice their opinions.

The goal of any community needs to be the *growth* and *development* of
it's members. Sharing of information amongst the members of community
and mentoring from experienced folk, are two ways to achieve this goal.
Holding regular guild meetings and use of alternative channels of
communication like IRC and Twitter will take us forward toward that
goal.

We hope to hold a guild-meeting on *10th July at 8 PM IST*, where the
topic of discussion is up-coming meetup on the 21st of July.

In case, someone needs help on how to connect to IRC, refer:
https://summertraining.readthedocs.io/en/latest/irc.html#

Tejas Sanap.
(whereistejas)