<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div>Hello Kathy, I support your nomination, I think it would be great for Linux Australia to have you in the role again. <br>I sincerely thank you for your passion and dedication to LA that you have shown in the President's role and in previous roles.<br><br></div>I must question this opening statement and seek your clarification:<br>"We've almost completed a rebrand of the organisation, the outputs of which will then be applied to new web and membership systems next year, if I'm re-elected."<br><br></div>Umm, please feel free to correct me but the work that has been done so far will very likely continue with the new Committee, whether you are on it or not. Yes?<br><br></div>Maybe you were suggesting that you would continue to push this process forward if re-elected which I fully support. But that isn't how it reads at present.<br><br></div>Good luck to you and all nominees for this election.<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 5 December 2017 at 12:33, Kathy Reid via linux-aus <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:linux-aus@lists.linux.org.au" target="_blank">linux-aus@lists.linux.org.au</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>Hi everyone, <br>
</p>
<p>I am nominating for President of Linux Australia in 2018. <br>
</p>
<p>Over 2017, I've been incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity
to lead a dedicated, professional, committed and high-performing
team in Council. As a team, we have had rigourous debate on a
number of issues internally, but have strived to provide a united
face as the leadership of Linux Australia, supported incredibly by
several subcommittees.<br>
</p>
<p>We've delivered a number of key outcomes. <br>
</p>
<p>We've almost completed a rebrand of the organisation, the outputs
of which will then be applied to new web and membership systems
next year, if I'm re-elected. We've breathed new life into our
Grants Programme, which saw around $AUD 35k distributed to
multiple worthwhile projects, including Womens Wednesday's at
Ballarat Hackerspace, sponsorship of diversity and inclusion
initiatives, such as VALA Tech Camp, and cross-pollinating open
source with other disciplines, such as with bioinformatics -
through STEMformatics. We've provided behind-the-scenes support
for a number of events - although our involvement has largely been
hands off - ensuring infrastructure like bank accounts and seed
funding are in place. We've welcomed Linux Users Victoria as a
subcommittee, helping to reduce their administrative overheads,
and focus on what they do best - bringing together the Linux and
open source community in Melbourne and surrounds. We've liaised
and started to build relationships with other relevant
organisations in Australia and abroad - such as through our
WordPress MoU - although there is much work still to do here.
We've also done the boring administrivia that ensures our
established processes run smoothly - in building a pipeline for
future <a href="http://linux.conf.au" target="_blank">linux.conf.au</a> and ensuring we do forward budget planning,
that we have insurance coverage, that we're complying with Fair
Trading NSW law, and that our bills are paid on time. We've also
made strong efforts to communicate our activities this year -
providing space and opportunity for feedback, criticism and
dialogue. Thank you to those who have taken that opportunity -
while we may not have always solved an issue, feedback helps us
ensure we're in alignment with the wishes of the Linux Australia
community. <br>
</p>
<p>We've had our challenges. <br>
</p>
<p>Striking the balance between freedom of expression, and creating
an environment where *all* open source practitioners, developers
and users feel welcomed remains a challenge. Sometimes we get that
balance right, and sometimes we need to work harder to shift the
pendulum. While we have more diversity of genders attending Linux
Australia events, this is nowhere near parity. And our community
is overwhelmingly white - which is not reflective of the diversity
in Australia - not just diversity of ethnicity - but diversity of
viewpoints, diversity of thinking, diversity of approaches.
Together we do better. We're also challenged by capacity. A
7-person volunteer Council puts in tens of hours per week just to
"keep things running" - one of the reasons that some of the goals
for this year have been delayed (web refresh and new member
database). We need to be realistic about what we can achieve with
an entirely voluntary leadership team, and a revenue model that is
based entirely on volunteer efforts. We do not want to see burnout
in our community or in Council. <br>
</p>
<p>Why me? <br>
</p>
<p>It would be easy to say "well, no-one else is silly enough to put
up their hand", but this would insult those whose steps I've
followed - Hugh, and Josh, and John, and James, and Stewart, and
Jon, and Pia, and Anand, and Terry. You shouldn't nominate me, or
vote for me because there's no one else. You should vote for me
because you have confidence in my ability to lead, and you believe
in the direction I want to take us in. If there are others with
other directions and visions - great - we benefit from a diversity
of strategies, and the desire and drive to fulfill them. <br>
</p>
<p>Where to?</p>
<p>Next year, I would like to continue the momentum we've built in
2017 - running the Grants Program again, and continuing to refresh
our aging systems. I would like us to continue to foster
relationships with other technology organisations and identifying
where we can work jointly on issues that affect us, and effect
greater change. We need to review whether our name - Linux
Australia - effectively captures what we do now. And we need to
continue to incrementally improve our operational processes, and
make things easier for those running events under our umbrella -
through templates, well documented procedures and so on. We also
need to be aware of the pipeline issue we face - we have fewer
younger and newer members, and we don't have strong methods for
attracting new members to our community. Those who survive and
thrive are those who can best adapt to change, and we need to
evolve. <br>
</p>
<p>Full disclosure of interests: <br>
</p>
<ul>
<li>I currently contract with Mycroft.AI, an open-source company
specialising in natural language processing and artificial
intelligence</li>
<li>I run my own microbusiness - <a href="http://kathyreid.com.au" target="_blank">kathyreid.com.au</a>, where I
contract in web development and data visualisation<br>
</li>
<li>I sit on two committees with G21 - the Geelong Regional
Alliance (Education and Training and Economic Development)</li>
<li>I hold a BA in Indonesian and security studies, a BS in
Information Systems and an MBA (Computing)<br>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Kind regards, <br>
</p>
<p>Kathy Reid<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
</font></span></p><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<pre class="m_-1464817345179064385moz-signature" cols="72">--
--
Kathy Reid
email: <a class="m_-1464817345179064385moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:kathy@kathyreid.id.au" target="_blank">kathy@kathyreid.id.au</a>
mobile: 0418 130 636
twitter: @kathyreid
</pre>
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