Sorry I missed meeting last night - I really meant to join in - but got bogged down with getting ready for OSDC.<div><br></div><div>Karen Pooley's talk this morning was very interesting - I think it's especially important that we future proof our LUGs and groups so that they are not dependent on key individuals - they need to be able to survive the "run over by a bus" effect or people just losing interest.</div>
<div><br></div><div>On the Gold Coast we recently relaunched our LUG with some success at our first meet. We have a few people coming that are currently involved with computer clubs at retirement villages and also IT training for retirees with Linux creeping it. Some interesting ideas forming around making Linux easier for these people. We are also testing the idea of a virtual Linux support "company" here on the Gold Coast - if the model works, it might be something we could export.</div>
<div><br></div><div>We are also about to incorporate our LUG as an association to allow us to do some more "commercial" activities... I know this subject is a little controversial - the majority were in favour, so we are giving it a go. Will keep you posted.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Steve</div><div><br></div><div>ps. OSDC is going well - anyone apart from me and Paul here????</div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Paul Wayper <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:paulway@mabula.net">paulway@mabula.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">Hi people,<br>
<br>
Last night at the meeting the predominate topic of conversation (i.e.<br>
basically Josh Hesketh's idea) was how to get a face-to-face meeting for LUG<br>
coordinators, delegates and friends. The idea would be to spend a day or<br>
weekend talking about how to improve our own LUGs and how to improve the<br>
coordination and co-operation between them. Josh's idea is to get Linux<br>
Australia funding for this to both find a place to hold it (my thought would<br>
be to see if we can convince some of the people in Google Sydney to give us<br>
access to a room and interwaves) and possibly to fund some airfares for people<br>
to get there.<br>
<br>
Linux Australia funding, for those that don't know, is based on a proposal; in<br>
return for the funding you provide some kind of benefit to Linux Australia and<br>
the Linux / FOSS community. My personal approach here is to avoid agendas,<br>
constitutions, mission statements and deliverables; but I think we can still<br>
have an awesome time sharing ideas. The question is how to pitch it.<br>
<br>
I'm at OSDC this morning and Karen Pooley (a Belfastian living in Tokyo) was<br>
talking about volunteers. She's had to deal with the Perl community, which<br>
has had to have meetings and plans and stuff, and I asked her how to avoid<br>
this. She made the excellent point that maybe one benefit to the community is<br>
that everyone that attends will blog about what they've done, post to their<br>
local LUG lists, and do whatever else they can to let people know the good<br>
ideas that were thought of during the session.<br>
<br>
My other little hobby horse is the club-in-a-box project, closely allied to<br>
the LUG-in-a-box project. My project has a trac site at<br>
<a href="http://tangram.dnsalias.net/trac/clubinabox/" target="_blank">http://tangram.dnsalias.net/trac/clubinabox/</a> at which everyone is welcome to<br>
add ideas and stuff - email me if you want to get commit access to the<br>
repository. The aim of club-in-a-box is to provide a software system (written<br>
in Django) to run a LUG website - welcome pages, meeting organiser, news<br>
posts, etc. The aim of LUG-in-a-box is to wrap something like that up, along<br>
with Apache, database, and Linux server, in a virtual machine that Linux<br>
Australia can host for LUGs (or they can host for themselves once they get big<br>
enough).<br>
<br>
It would be really cool, in my not so humble opinion, to have a hackfest on<br>
something like this. That would be a real product that we could show to Linux<br>
Australia at the end of the weekend as proof of what we'd done. My feeling is<br>
that both of these projects are also great things to get inter-LUG<br>
collaboration on - to give a shared project that people across Australia and<br>
the world can work on together to both contribute code and meet new people.<br>
<br>
Anyway, those are my thoughts, and I think that Josh's idea of getting LA<br>
funding is great.<br>
<br>
Have fun,<br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Lugcomms mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Lugcomms@lists.linux.org.au">Lugcomms@lists.linux.org.au</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo/lugcomms" target="_blank">http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo/lugcomms</a><br>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>I did have a signature, but the dog ate it.<br><br>google/googlewave:steve.dalton | skype:spidieman | twitter: @spidie<br>
</div>