[wellylug] Very Important: Meeting of 13th Feb 2005

David Murray newslists at electronincantation.net.nz
Tue Feb 14 16:19:49 NZDT 2006


On Tue, 14 Feb 2006, Jamie Dobbs wrote:

>> If I may use the Auckland LUG (as it evolved from NZLUG) as a comparitive
>> example:
>>
>> - "In Charge" translates to "Administers the Mailing List".  So in effect
>> there is no person "In charge of the LUG".
>> 
>> - Meetings are arranged by a volunteer who also happens to be one of the
>> Mailing List admins.
>>
>> - Events such as Installfests etc have their committee, etc, determined by
>> 'who volunteers'.  Tasks are divvied up and 'in charge' becomes somewhat
>> subjective.  As a group, major decisions are discussed, conclusions are
>> come to etc.  The person who is in charge on-the-day (might be likened to
>> 'Operations Manager' is not the same person setting policy for the
>> event... more just keeping things ticking over on the day.  And those
>> people hold no responsibility 'for the LUG' either.
>>
>> - This seems to work.  Noones complained, everyones voice gets heard,
>> reason seems to win out in the end.
>>
>> So why do you need a figurehead? or heads?
>>
>> Mark.
>
> This echoes my thoughts as well Mark. WellyLUG have been down this path
> before so why does it need to again? The current structure (or lack
> thereof) seems to work for most people so to use an old addage :- If it
> ain't broke, don't fix it.
>
> IMHO a loose collection of like minded folk will always do better than a
> formal structure where any decisions have to be signed in triplicate and
> buried in soft peat for 6 months before anything can be done (apologies
> to Douglas Adams).
> Look at what the LUG has acheived in recent years without any major
> formalisation and ecide if formalisation would improve this at all....
> in my view it wouldn't.


A loose, casual, incoherant structure is fine if all what WellyLUG is is 
a mailing list. But it isn't. It's more than only a mailing list.

It has aims and objectives. Quote:

# To exchange Linux and Open Source software knowledge and experience

# To encourage the usage of Linux and Open Source, by introducing it,
   explaining it, and helping people to install it.

# To have a good time, meet other people and to make friends.


As you can see not all of those aims can be done via email, and some of
those aims are, IMHO, best done by other means.

Why should the structure be either of those two extremes that you mention?

Off course nobody wants a hyper formal structure with everything done in 
triplicate etc.

But... who is assigned certain tasks on behalf of the members of WellyLUG?

Tasks such as greeting new potential members and introducing them to 
people?


I'd like to see a small (15 minutes absolute max) learning segment near 
the beginning of each month's meeting where people can share/present some 
tip, or trick, or some cool feature that they've only just discovered, or 
stuff like that. Something short, straight forward and useful. And if 
people want to find out more about what was presented, then they can 
approach the person who presented the segment.

I think that informal discussion in small groups is fine and good. I think 
that having a less informal part of the meeting where everyone is 
participating in something together... and learning together as a LUG... 
is also good.

Why not have the best of both ideas?

Personally, I'd love to see a brief presentation, for example, on some of 
the things to avoid when trying to configure X.

I'd like to see, for example, somebody explain briefly how runlevels work, 
and what the difference is between runlevels on Linux and runlevels on BSD 
unix.

Wouldn't these things be stuff that all of us would find interesting at 
least to some degree? Would a general discussion on these things be 
interesting to anybody?

Who among us would enjoy the challenge of doing these sorts of 
presentations?

Is there anybody here who has recently discovered some advanced feature 
of, say, Open Office, or The Gimp, or KDE, or whatever, and felt really 
pleased with what they could do as a result?

Anybody want to share those triumphs with the rest of us?

Personally, I think that a part of learning is also teaching what one's 
learned.

Would people really find this sort of thing so much of a bore that they 
would not come along to WellyLUG? Really??

And who would be the co-ordinator of this?

Who would be the person who has the authority to speak on behalf of 
WellyLUG?

Whose letterbox/email address is the one for communications to WellyLUG?

I see much potential for WellyLUG as a centre of shared learning about all 
things Linux and Open Source, and I would be happy to help WellyLUG as a 
group to achieve its stated aims.

The questions I see ahead of us are:

How best to achieve WellyLUG's stated aims (see above), given the greater 
public interest currently being shown towards Linux.

And, how best to promote WellyLUG to the public at large (many of whom 
have now at least heard the name "Linux") as a place where they can come 
along and find out more about using Linux.

What do other WellyLUG members think of the above?


Regards

David Murray




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