[Linux-aus] Linux Australia AGM Held & [Linux-aus] Representation

[Pia Smith]

Hi everyone, 

Sorry I'm late for the party :) 

After reading through this thread, many really relevant and interesting
points have come up. I'm a little disappointed that quite a bit of the
thread regressed to negativity and misinterpretation, but even negative
criticism can be constructive. Thanks everyone for your posts, as
ultimately where LA goes should reflect the needs of the community.

First I want to clear up a few things. 

One of Linux Australias aims is to be a national representative group
for the Linux community of Australia. This includes LUGs, education,
general users, vendors, everyone within the Linux community. I think
that developing communication and consolidation with and between the
LUGs Australia wide is very important, but it isn't LAs only aim, LUGs
are not the entire Linux community. LA _would_ like to see real
representation of all the LUGs, the committee however should be formed
by people with the energy and time to make it happen regardless of their
location. Would it make it better if I moved to NT? :) An Advisory Team*
would be great to increase the communication, and productivity of LA. I
will put this to the committee at our meeting.

[* - Ultimately made up of people who feel their LUG/SIG aren't
adequately represented by the committee, and who can speak on behalf of
their LUG/SIG]

There are a few things that maybe could have been handled better, but we
are talking a change from an organisation of 5, to an organisation of
400. One of the hopes in giving people at LCA an LA membership was to
invoke interest. Many people I spoke to in Perth became very interested
when they realised they had membership, and now many people are becoming
interested when they realise they don't. It kind of worked both ways.
LA needs to make some ammendments to its constitution and structure and
then we can increase our membership to everyone interested, and get an
advisory team and the like happening. By next years election we will
have the electoral process sorted so there is adequate notice,
completely open nominations and hopefully some form of electronic
voting. For now aim for membership and perhaps an advisory board
position. We will be discussing this and fixing it as soon as we can, so
please hang in there! 

The committee will be discussing all the ideas from this thread (and
from all the responses from various people we've had over the last week
or two) on wednesday. We plan to change several things that will address
the issues. We can only ask for peoples continued support as we
structure this organisation into something useful, productive and
ultimately beneficial for the _entire_ Linux community of Australia. I
will make sure the minutes are made public and then if anyone feels they
have an issue we need to address, they can mail us at
committee at linux.org.au and we can make it part of the next meeting.

Thanks everyone, I hope that everyone knows all input is very welcome. I
have a lot of faith in the committee as we have an excellent array of
people and I hope that we can serve this community adequately :)

Regards
Pia Smith
LA

PS - I could have attempted responding to every point, but I'd rather
discuss some of these issues with the committee on wednesday and be able
to come back with some answers/solutions, rather than my speculations. 

PPS - I've cc'd the allies and lug lists as I thought they might be
interested in this thread and response.