[Linux-aus] An update on Linux Australia's activities
Hugh Blemings
president at linux.org.au
Mon Sep 26 14:15:30 AEST 2016
Hi Everyone,
Although many of you may read the Council minutes that are posted on the
Linux Australia website [0], we'd also like to take the opportunity to
keep you up to date on Council's actions, and the broader activities of
Linux Australia.
-= First majority female Linux Australia Council =-
The new Council was elected at LCA Geelong in February, and for the
first time in Linux Australia's 15 year history, the Council is majority
female. Congratulations to Katie McLaughlin (OCM), Cherie Ellis (OCM),
Craige McWhirter (OCM), Tony Breeds (Treasurer), Sae Ra Germaine
(Secretary), Kathy Reid (Vice President) and Hugh Blemings (President).
As always you can contact the Council at council at linux.org.au - such
correspondence is of course treated in confidence.
-= Linux Australia events =-
The year got off to a great start with the excellent linux.conf.au 2016
Geelong - LCA By the Bay, and things are well underway for an equally
memorable event in Hobart in January 2017. Miniconfs have just been
announced, and our ever-amazing Papers Committee had a difficult job
indeed choosing from the high calibre of submissions to the Call for
Papers. Registrations to linux.conf.au will be open soon [1].
Bids for LCA2019 recently closed, and we’re delighted with the responses
we received [2]. We’ll now work with the relevant folk to refine their
bids, and the winner of LCA2019 will be announced in due course.
May saw another successful WordCamp event run on the Sunshine Coast in
Queensland [3]. Well done to Luke Carbis, Ricky Blacker and the whole
crew for an excellent event.
This weekend just gone saw an equally amazing WordCamp Sydney, held at
UTS [4]. Big thanks to Wil Brown and the team for all their efforts here.
Pycon-AU returned to Melbourne this year, held at the Melbourne
Convention and Exhibition Centre August 12th-16th. Some great work by
Richard Jones and his team [5], thank you.
This year, Linux Australia is once again auspicing GovHack Australia
events, with the hackathon itself held over July 29th-July 31st. Big
thanks to Richard Tubb, Alysha Thomas, Jan Bryson and the GovHack Global
Operations Team for what is now recognised as one of the largest
national hackathons in the world. The National Red Carpet Awards will be
held in Adelaide in October - a huge congratulations to all teams who’ve
made it through to the National Awards [6].
DrupalSouth this year heads to the Gold Coast October 27th-28th, led
ably by Vladimir Roudakov and Janna Malikova [7]. Tickets are now available!
If you're thinking about running an open-* event in your area, please do
get in touch with us.
-= Council Face to Face =-
Council Face to Face was held in May, and we discussed a number of
priorities for 2016 including making progress on Membership
expiry/renewal and a new membership platform, improvements to the Code
of Conduct and related processes and policies, among many other issues.
We noted that Linux Australia's activities, particularly with events,
have grown significantly in recent years, and many of our volunteers are
now stretched. We explored ways to reduce this, such as onboarding
additional volunteers, and identifying ways to outsource pieces of work
where it makes sense to do so.
One of the immediate pieces that came out of F2F was the need for
Council to track yearly and regular activities, which have now been
articulated to allow for better planning [8]. There are a number of
pieces from F2F which are still works in progress such as a Process
Manual, Risk Register and strengthening of our Code of Conduct.
An extra special thanks to Joshua Hesketh, past President, for attending
Face to Face to share his expertise and wisdom.
-= Advocacy and government submissions =-
In April Linux Australia made a submission to the Australian Government
in relation to the Senate Committee on the Trans Pacific Partnership
noting our significant concerns about the proposal. Our submission is
#128 in the Parliamentary Joint Committee page [9] A direct link to the
PDF is at [10].
In June a submission was made to the Australian Government Productivity
Commission’s enquiry into Intellectual Property Arrangements - in which
we sought to ensure the interests of Free and Open Source Software and
Technologies were considered by the Commission. A PDF of the submission
is here [11].
We are grateful for the tireless efforts of Josh Stewart on the
preparation of these two submissions and to Kim Weatherall for her
assistance with research and discussion of same.
-= Grants and projects =-
LA undertook charity matching at linux.conf.au 2016 Geelong, providing
nearly $5k to charity Give Where You Live, which undertakes works of
social good in and around Geelong, making a total of nearly $10k
donated. LA also made a donation to Electronic Frontiers Association as
part of an event partnership arrangement at linux.conf.au 2016 Geelong.
We're currently in contact with the Software Freedom Conservancy, and
intend to make a large donation to them shortly to support their
important work.
If you would like to seek a grant or project funding in line with LA's
values, more information is available [12].
-= Membership renewal =-
As part of moving towards a more robust Membership platform, we're
currently undertaking a Membership Renewal activity. Huge thanks to
everyone who responded to our recent mail out - your responses help to
keep our membership information up to date.
We're still sorting through responses but our active membership looks to
be around 1,000 members.
You can adjust your membership information at any time [13].
-= Treasury and Finance Subcommittee =-
Council has recently voted to form a Treasury and Finance Subcommittee
to support the Treasurer and to ensure we help build a pipeline of
Members with the aptitude to take on this role in the future [14].
-= Next steps =-
Over the coming months, Council will be busy with a number of pieces,
including;
* Wrapping up financials for the 2015-2016 financial year,
which ends on September 30, and budgeting for the
year 2016-2017
* Inspecting bids for LCA2019
* Progressing on work started on our Process Manual and
Code of Conduct including the establishment of a subcommittee
to assist with the latter.
* Our Admin Team will be undertaking enhancements to the LA
infrastructure, and our Membership Team will be continuing
to strengthen our membership platform and website.
As always, if you'd like to be involved in some capacity with LA's
activities, we'd be delighted to hear from you.
Elections for the Council are not far away, if you have the time, energy
and passion to contribute, please consider throwing your hat into the
ring when the time comes :)
In closing my thanks to the Council for their efforts and in particular
to Kathy Reid for doing the heavy lifting in preparing much of this summary.
Kind Regards,
Hugh Blemings
President, Linux Australia
[0] https://linux.org.au/news
[1] https://linux.conf.au
[2] http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/announce/2016-July/000226.html
[3] https://2016.sunshinecoast.wordcamp.org/
[4] https://2016.sydney.wordcamp.org/
[5] https://2016.pycon-au.org/
[6] https://www.govhack.org
[7] https://goldcoast2016.drupal.org.au/
[8]
https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/blob/master/activities-calendar.md
[9]
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Treaties/9_February_2016/Submissions
[10]
http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=38187468-9761-4e05-84f1-281ba68e65a8&subId=410396
[11]
http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/201280/subdr488-intellectual-property.pdf
[12] https://linux.org.au/our-projects
[13] https://linux.org.au/membership
[14]
http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/2016-September/022801.html
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