I have been watching local groups for a couple of weeks. Those I mean are the: Inhabitants of Bergerac, Languedoc-Roussillon, Midi-Pyrenees, Poitou-Charentes and Toulouse. Of course the Bergerac and Toulouse ones mean people living in the area or this is their closest members' group rather than literally in either city.
I was looking at membership, all 362 pages of it so not thoroughly and comparing with the groups. I suspect people are moving into those areas where there are groups, are unaware of their existence so that membership is not growing. They may also be a bit moribund, certainly my local one Bergerac is despite attempts to get people to meet as we used to fairly regularly.
My purpose here is really to inform new members of SFN these groups exist, thus to inject new life into them and then perhaps see these groups become active across the board.
Either go to the groups and join up or if there are questions or discussion points raise them here.
Lurking, lurking! We can't have SFN members lurking. Organise them, save them from a fate worse than... err, lurking.
Seriously though, in 24 when we met regularly although we naturally did lots of small talk we were also able to discuss things face to face, give newcomers to the area advice of various kinds and actually connect people who might well have never got together. I certainly did meet some people I would call friends. What we can all do on here is perhaps boundless but by being able to put a face on people, hear their voices, see their eyes and all the kind of things that we cannot do here the point is very quickly apparent.
Andrew has a very good point. There is no absolute need to have departmental groups, neither Bergerac nor Toulouse are that. So where there are people very spread out then smaller, more localised areas do it just as well. As for working people, well one hopes that that is not 24/7, which it is as close as spitting for Andrew, and that people can find times.
I think the groups are good but in my case (midi-pyrénées) way too large an area, I'm in the north of the m-p and work more than full time so have very little time, I know there are one or two people in the northern Tarn and into the Aveyron but that's where the activity stops (or doesn't get going actually) a few people pop into my tabac from time to time but I'm usually too busy to talk for long :-(
I also think that those with whom I've got something in common are probably too busy working too...?!