[Linux-aus] Secretary's report for 2015

[Linux Australia Secretary]

Hi everyone,

In preparation for the AGM, and because I'm leaving early to head to NZ 
for what looks like an amazing conference from Cherie, Steve and the 
team, please find att'd my office-bearer report for the role of 
Secretary, current to the time of writing. Your feedback is warmly 
welcomed, either via return email, at the AGM or privately,

With kind regards,
Kathy

---

2014 Linux Australia Office-bearer report: Secretary

Executive summary

2014 was another successful year for Linux Australia Council. During the 
year, a mailing list policy was developed in conjunction with community 
feedback and subsequently ratified. Social media exposure of Linux 
Australia continued to grow gradually, with the @linuxaustralia Twitter 
account reaching over 900 genuine followers. In addition the day-to-day 
running of Linux Australia proceeded without issue; the organisation was 
again run smoothly, with quorum achieved at all fortnightly meetings, 
ensuring strong and rapid decision making.

Meetings

During 2014, 23 Council teleconferences were held. Quorum was achieved 
at each of them, and minutes were produced and made public generally 
within a week of the conference occurring. Action items were generally 
tracked well.

The annual face to face meeting was held in early March in Hobart and 
was a particularly useful session for welcoming new Council members Sae 
Ra and Chris, and for outlining the hot topic for the year, including 
the need for a mailing list policy.

Handover activities

This will be my last year in the short-term as Secretary; I am not 
seeking re-election in 2015 due to linux.conf.au 2016 requirements. 
Therefore I have documented the Secretary role within the Council Wiki 
space to enable seamless handover.

Membership

The current membership system, MemberDB has a number of reporting 
inaccuracies. Membership is thus reported as below with duplicates 
removed which is a more accurate estimate of actual members.


On 16 January 2014, Linux Australia had 3089 members
On 29 November 2014 Linux Australia had 3207 members

This represents a yearly growth of around 4% which is steady. 
Fortnightly Council minutes now include membership numbers.

Because member expiry and renewal is not possible with MemberDB, there 
are likely to be significant 'expired' members in MemberDB. Future 
Councils should strongly consider selecting an alternative to MemberDB, 
which although it has served Linux Australia well is now end of life. 
Some preliminary measures have been taken here in articulating a draft 
requirements document.

Future Councils may wish to prioritise the replacement of MemberDB and a 
concomitant update of member details.

Media and communications

The use of Twitter as a key communications channel has continued to 
grow, from 620 followers at the end of 2013 to over 910 as of the time 
of writing. Scheduling tools are used to schedule important 
announcements ahead of time, and current relevant articles are Tweeted 
as appropriate. Other related accounts, such as @linuxconfau -- often 
amplify broadcasts made on the @linuxaustralia account.

Figure 1 - @linuxaustralia Twitter account followers by month April 2013 
-- October 2014

Figure 2 and 3 -- Response rates and clickthrough rates of key content 
from @linuxaustralia
Data provided through ThinkUp program

Efforts begun in 2013 to get a newsletter underway stalled this year due 
to available resourcing; this task remains valid and needed and future 
Councils may wish to wrap it up with the MemberDB replacement.


Web presence

Linux Australia's web presence remains a key digital property, averaging 
around 4500 page views per calendar month, with peaks and troughs in 
line with the key activity periods of the organisation such as voting, 
calls for linux.conf.au bid cities etc.


Figure 4 -- page views to linux.org.au over 2014 from Google Analytics

The most popular content on the site remains the introductory 
information around free and open source software, jobs information and 
information about linux.conf.au. Jobs information is a key section of 
the linux.org.au site and is one that future Councils may wish to focus 
on for additional attention or promotion.
Figure 5 -- key statistics on most popular content on linux.org.au

The site itself is somewhat out of date; future Councils may wish to 
consider an upgrade to a more recent version of Drupal, possibly in line 
with a MemberDB replacement.

Handling of correspondence

Linux Australia handled a large volume of correspondence this year, 
including requests for termination of membership, requests for work 
experience, enquiries from like organisations such as LUV and OSIA, 
enquiries from campaigns and related movements (TPPA, EFA etc) and again 
a small volume of support requests. All correspondence was tracked via 
minutes and responded to.

Council handled 1 formal complaint this year in accordance with the 
constitution.

Kathy Reid
Secretary
Linux Australia
December 2014

secretary at linux.org.au
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