[Announce] Linux Australia - New Membership

[Pia Smith]

___________________________________________


Welcome to Linux Australia.

As you may (or may not) be aware, your Linux Conf Au 2003 registration
included membership to Linux Australia. 

An optional part of the program for LCA2003 was the Annual General
Meeting (AGM) of Linux Australia. A large number of people participated
and a new committee was elected comprising of :
 
 	Pia Smith - President
 	Stewart Smith - Vice Presidnet
 	Andrew Cowie - Secretary 
 	Anand Kumria - Treasurer
 	Hugh Bleming
 	Leon Brooks
 	Andrew Tridgell
 
Further details on the committee are available at:
<URL: http://www.linux.org.au/whatsnew.phtml>. We have a number of goals
over the coming months - but the underlying goal is to revitalise the
organisation.
 
You may wish to familise yourself with both our charter 
<URL: http://www.linux.org.au/org/charter.phtml> and our constitution
<URL: http://www.linux.org.au/org/constitution.phtml>. We welcome
feedback on these documents and we are currently considering
modifications to both.

Your membership entitles you to a vote at all Linux Australia meetings
(both AGMs and Special General Meetings (SGMs)). However we welcome
everyone who wishes to participate in any way, member or not.

Linux Australia (LA) was established in 1998 and formally registered in 
1999. It is just now starting to expand in new directions to make it
relevant and useful. We aim to be an effective gateway into the
Australian Linux community from without and within.

For the community, we have a number of resources which have been available to
organisations in the past, including:
 
 	- LA Jobs service and Mailing List
 		<URL: http://www.linux.org.au/jobs/>		
		<URL: http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo/jobs> 

 	- LA User Group lists
 		<URL: http://www.linux.org.au/usergroups/>
 
 	- LA Vendor listings
 		<URL: http://www.linux.org.au/vendors/>
 
 	- Support for like-minded organisations, notably ComputerBank
 	  and user groups which do not have readily available
 	  infrastructure, such as a website.
 
 	- Mailing lists
 
 	- Mirrors
 
 	- IRC services.

The community can look forward to seeing these resources improved and
extended, as well as having a more efficient gateway to the rest of
the community. Any feedback you have about the resources and how to make
them more effective will be welcome, as we are currently fashioning more
and better resources to serve the community.

We also intend to provide facilities to the general public. LUG/SIG/vendor 
reference sites that will be up to date, a great place for information about 
Linux, Open Source, Australian community news, and how they can get involved.

Linux Australia will present the concerns of its members with one strong 
voice to organisations throughout Australia. This may take the form of 
interacting with large institutions regarding such things as web site 
accessibility or conversing with the Government to point out opportunities 
for increased usage of Linux. 

Linux Australia can only acheive great things with your participation
and feedback. After all Linux Australia is not its committee, Linux Australia 
is the community.

On behalf of the committee,

Pia Smith
President of Linux Australia 2003/2004	
Linux Australia - http://linux.org.au