Even if we don't have any problems filling the 15-minute social breaks with glib socializing (which I'm confident we won't)...

Some possible quick topics for conversation might include any of the virtual lexicon of initialisms, names, terms and a sundry other non-layman linguistics that riddle the Blender (and other 3D suites') landscape... just enough to quickly familiarize, like maybe 30 seconds to a couple of minutes each, so it all becomes less and less a foreign language.

What the heck is GLSL or BSDF?

     Who the hell is Fresnel?

          Why do they call it UV?

               … Biods?

Even familiarizing newbs on otherwise common-enough words with Blender specific meanings, like translate, origin, normal and I'm sure others that aren't on the top of my head right now.

And, if we've planned certain endeavors ahead of time, we can focus on related verbiage. For example, whenever we explore animation, we can mention things like IK or Spline-IK, IPO, etc.

I recently watched a video from the Blender Conference about Camera Tracking. It seems like they overhauled a lot of it. I'll need more time to check out the new features before I can make a presentation, and I doubt I can do that by November's meeting. Maybe we can start with something simpler for November.

If this discussion is about an alternative standard meeting format, can I make a small suggestion that might help avoid confusion (even if it is only my confusion)?  Rename this discussion, “Standard Meeting Format Alternative 2,” or something quite similar.  Because, whatever format we decide to use for Meeting 002, we also need to discuss Agenda 002. And, an unconfused title for that discussion would be, “Agenda 002 Proposals.” I think it would be easier to discuss both separately.

As for “Standard Meeting Format Alternative 2,” I don't see anything wrong with it. However, we might not need or want two 15-minute social breaks in a 3-hour period. I understand how that nicely sandwiches between the three blocks. But, 30 minutes seems a little much. Just a thought.

I wouldn't mind coming early to setup and leaving later to clean up.

I would prepare a presentation of my compositing workflow, but I used a couple of Adobe products in the process. I'll see if I can figure out how to do it all in Blender.

Thank you for showing initiative here, irishspacemonk. I mean that sincerely.

At the very end of Meeting 001, Philip informed several of us that we will have to manually reload Blender into the computers we want to use in the classroom. Was it will_w that suggested that volunteers conduct group business before the meeting starts? Well, we could combine both of these 15 minutes beforehand, regardless of what meeting format is agreed upon for which meetings.

Further, if the group has agreed upon one or more specific topics to attempt to cover for a particular meeting, whoever is prepping the classroom computers with Blender could also include related files and programs at the same time, like GIMP, texture files, models, etc.

Along with these prep and group-business volunteers, we should also ask (beg, bribe, entice) spot-check volunteers to straighten up, clean and shut down the classroom better than it when we arrived.

Oh, and also, if there wasn't enough time &/or early-arriving volunteers to conclude business before the meeting, they could consider doing so with the closers.

will_w already knows I've volunteered for the group's website business. If we don't do any/all of that through online communications, I'll be there early. And, its a long trip back for me, so 10-15 more minutes past the meetings' end won't make a whole lot of difference.

Will, Philip - I think I adequately addressed your input, but if not, feel free to jump in and edit the above proposal. This goes for anyone else as well.

I would like to see a "Beginner's Corner" that we could do in the back of the room at any meeting where one or more showed up who had never used Blender before. This would cover where to go to get online help with installing it and getting it running, a quick overview on Blender's various facets (modeling to rigging to textures to rendering to SVE... I'm leaving something out I'm sure). Then a bit of hands-on with subdividing, extruding, using the 3D cursor and snapping, etc. So leave them with an idea of the breadth of the program and get them started with the modeling.

I want to get newbies involved right away. And it seems to me that workshop activities and most of the tutorial stuff of interest to us is just going to leave a total noob feeling like a frustrated outsider.

For the workshop hours do you mean to have a hybrid session of an open workshop plus tutorial/lesson/lecture like I suggested?

For one of the first topics, I'd suggest to go over the interface, cause sometimes I do something unintentional and I get lost in the interface. 

I moved the suggestions and ideas from the intense thread over here.

I like Philip's suggestion of dividing the room into beginner/advanced and then moving topics in that order. The only hesitation I'd have in opening up the meetup with a workshop is for newcomers. I think keeping the first part to Jen's suggestion of seeing the results of other's work, and getting inspired is still probably best for those with only fresh interest.

For Workshop Topic - All About Modeling

Based on the work that everyone showed last week, it seems, starting with Modeling is appropriate. Examples of some topics would be how to use the new Bmesh tools, the new Skinning features, scuplting (intermediate-advanced), etc.

If anyone thinks it should be a different topic - please post.