[Linux-aus] Minutes - February 19th 2003

[Pia Smith]

http://linux.org.au/minutes - To be posted soon!

LINUX AUSTRALIA
COMMITTEE MEETING - MINUTES
1500 hrs
19 February 2003

HELD: Via Teleconference with supporting IRC channel
PRESENT:
Stewart Smith Vice President
Anand Kumria Treasurer
Andrew Cowie Secretary
Andrew Tridgell
REGRETS: Pia Smith President
Hugh Blemings
Leon Brooks

CALL
Order

The meeting was called to order at 1517 hrs. All though last minute
events prevented Pia, Hugh and Leon from attending, with Quorum present
the meeting proceeded so that certain administrative matters could be
attended to.

Agenda
The agenda for the meeting was approved as follows:
Previous Minutes
Actions arising from Minutes
Other Business
Future Meetings

Chair
Stewart Smith as Vice-President, chaired the meeting.

Notice
The meeting date was as agreed at the previous meeting and confirmed by
email to the committee mailing list.

Prior meeting minutes
Andrew briefly discussed the process whereby minutes are created and
approved. He indicated that the minutes can be simply accepted by a
meeting, or accepted with amendments. If significant changes are
required, the secretary can be directed to draw up a new set and will
present them at the following meeting.
Minutes for meetings of 24 Jan 03 and 5 Feb 03 were presented for
approval. Anand Kumria and Pia Smith submitted (via email) minor
amendments which were discussed.

MOTION It was moved by Andrew Cowie and seconded by Anand Kumria that
the minutes of 24 Jan 03 be accepted and that the minutes of the 5 Feb
03 meeting be accepted as amended. CARRIED.

ACTIONS ARISING FROM MINUTES
Administrative Transfer
Anand noted that he had met with Andrew Cowie and given a copy of the PO
Box key to him. [This will work well as Andrew's company PO Box is in
the same location]. Anand and Andrew have also discussed the necessary
governmental forms that need to be completed. Anand, Andrew and Pia will
be meeting at NSW Department of Fair Trading next Tuesday.

Mission Statement
Tridge researched the Mission Statement of the organization and realized
that the organization's Charter seemed to be the document which defined
these elements. While he thought the document to be sound, he thought
the mission as described there was too close (identical?) to that of
LinuxCare. He suggested that we amend our Mission Statement to be
“promoting the Linux Community” as opposed to “supporting the Linux
Community” to avoid the perception of conflicting with LinuxCare.

Vendor Discounts
Tridge spoke with some vendors about the possibility of member
discounts. The reception was not that enthusiastic, he reported. They
were concerned that all ready thin margins would not allow great
discounts. Tridge to keep chasing this.

Twiki
Tridge confirmed that a Twiki had been set been set up at
lactte.linux.org.au.

Membership Database
Stewart described the work he had done to this point on a Membership
database.
The need for an “address” for each of our members was discussed, and it
was agreed that this definition, under The Act would need to be
interpreted as physical surface address (rather than just an email
address). Anand indicated that, by hooking into the LCA data, we would
have addresses for most of our members but would need to focus on
gathering address data for new members.
Andrew Cowie pointed out that he was concerned about the data becoming
tombstone and dated as happens to so many systems with data entry but
without a clear mechanism to encourage data updating. So long as the LA
Database is the back end and seed for the work done by LCA, members
will, at least annually, have a chance to renew their data.

Twiki
Tridge suggested that this would also greatly simplify the conference
registration system. This led the discussion to considering the role of
Twiki. Tridge pointed out that complex back end hooks can be made into
Twiki using Perl.
Anand inquired if this could be used for the www.linux.org.au site as a
whole. Tridge said this wouldn't be a problem, and proceeded to give a
brief tutorial on how Twiki is administered.

NEW BUSINESS
Talks
Stewart mentioned that he thought we should provide a place where talks
and presentations could be posted, and will set something up in Twiki.

Press Contact
Andrew Tridgell pointed out that the organization needed a press contact
and that this person should be clearly identified as such. Andrew Cowie
pointed out that Pia Smith was all ready well into this role as
President and all agreed that Pia should be the organization's Press
Contact.

CLOSE

Next Meetings
Next meetings are as follows:
Committee Teleconference Meeting Wednesday 5 March 2003 at 1500 EST
Committee In-Person Meeting April-May, TBC

Adjournment
There being no further business, the Meeting was Adjourned by Stewart at
1549.

____________________

Regards,
Pia