It’s midday when I arrive at St Werburgh’s Community Centre and the Bristol Wireless lab is a hive of activity. All told, there are half a dozen volunteers in attendance before dispersing to various tasks.
After a while things quieten down a bit. Lloyd, our network engineer, has been joined by Matt Zero (we have several Matts, all numbered for convenience) and together they disappear off to the top of Twinnell House to do some work with our hardware in the lift room at the top of the block.
Ronnie Corbett, the warden of Princess Royal Gardens in Redfield arrives; he departs again with our Polish volunteer Michael and a new LTSP server for the residents’ common room. Later they’re followed by Everton who’s offerred to assist.
The lab is a bit emptier now. Who’s still there?
Rich Higgs, one of our founder members, is working on some web pages and occasionally phoning their ultimate owner about amendments. The content for the pages has been sent in an MS Word document – not a clever thing to do with some Linux users.
Woodsy’s blogging for Connecting Bristol, reading Slashdot and answering his email. At brew-up time he disappears down to the shop for milk and biscuits.
Jim, another long-standing member who has no web access at home, is reading his email too; we’re all logged in to the Bristol Wireless IRC channel.
Sam, our fundraiser, turns up in mid-afternoon, logs in and starts researching for a meeting he’s got the following day.
It’s getting near 5 o’clock: Ronnie Corbett delivers Michael back from Princess Royal Gardens, a bit of banter and he’s off again. Lloyd and Matt Zero have finished up Twinnell and have now moved on to Easton Community Centre to work.
At six or thereabouts Jim and Woodsy leave, but Sam and Rich still haven’t finished; they’re meeting our Chair Pete Ferne down the Watershed later that evening.
Later that evening sitting at my home machine, a forwarded email about a Canadian wifi project arrives from Pete Ferne. It will make a good news item for the Bristol Wireless site. I copy, paste, edit and publish it; it’s now way past ten o’clock – time to say goodnight to Bristol Wireless.