How active are your local Linux User’s Groups?

At the Linux Foundation, I recently had been brainstorming with some my colleagues about ways in which we might be able to reach out to the various local Linux User’s Group (LUGS). So I was quite surprised when I saw a blog posting from Lenovo’s Connections blog asking the question: “Local User Groups – gone the way of the dinosaur?” and even more provocatively, “Has the web now relegated the user group to history, along with dot matrix printers, cassette tapes for mass storage, and dial up modems with acoustic couplers?”

I checked on the web for a number of LUG’s, such as the Boston Linux and Unix User Group (BLU) and the Silicon Valley LUG (SVLUG), and they appeared to be active, at least in terms of mailing list activity and event calanedars.   But of course that doesn’t indicate how many people are actually attending the face-to-face meetings, and how strong the LUG’s are in general.

So let me ask here — do you attend or participate in a LUG?   How active is it?   What do you get out of participating in a LUG?