BeJUG... why should I ?

I wanted to post a comment to a blog post from Bjorn Monnens but unfortunately the comments part of his blog doesn't work so I decided to react here

This is the blog post:

Bejug ??? Why would I ???

Today I received an email from Javapolis. They were starting advertising the upcoming new Javapolis event. On the site they also mentioned there new Javapolis DVD that was available for purchase. I noticed this was an effort from Bejug. So I got interested as I'm a Java developer

Now what do you get for paying 100 euro's to join the Bejug. They have 3 workshops per year and ... Well nothing actually. You still have to pay for Javapolis and for SpringOne. Please people explain me, why would I join??? If I compare it to the Linux User Group in Leuven, they have 2 workshops a month and you pay 10 euro's a month.
I would rather start my own Jug and do the same as the Lug of Leuven. Anybody up for it ?

Membership

BeJUG is a victim of its own success! When we organize an event between 50 and 200 people attend the workshops. This means we need to find locations that can handle the size, for example De Montil. If you want to offer coffee and other refreshments, setup Audio & Video and record the sessions for Parleys.com, you easily need a budget between 30 a 50 euro per person. This explains the 100 Euro annual membership for 3 workshops.

In addition if you look at JavaPolis almost 35% of the total attendees get a FREE entrance pass because they either run a JUG (we've a special JUG program) or are last year graduates in a Belgian University (250+ in 2006).

But yes please please organize additional Java workshops and let us know, I'll include it in the mailing list so you can expect more people to attend...

BTW You can enjoy the JavaPolis DVD material (for free) at Parleys.com

More events

The major reason we only have 3 workshops a year is the vast amount of time needed to prepare these workshops/conferences. Having between 5 and 110 speakers over 1 or 5 days does take some time to organize next to the many other logistics involved. Personally I prefer to have several BIG conferences that can make a difference than 15+ informal events "in a pub"

Cheers,

-Stephan