[Announce] December update, and a very happy holidays to all

[Linux Australia President]

Hi everyone,

Firstly on behalf of the Council we hope that this message finds you 
happy, healthy and enjoying the holidays - but perhaps not so much the 
heat that is visiting upon much of the country - stay safe and cool.

This is our last communication for 2018, and there's quite a lot to get 
through, so without further ado, our December update!


        Declaration of election, Council positions available and call
        for Agenda items for AGM

It may be dry and boring for most people, but as an Incorporated 
Association, there are a few bits and pieces that legally we need to do 
to be compliant - and to govern effectively. Chief among these are the 
election of a new Council, as Council terms are 12 months, and expire in 
January. You can read more about nominating from Council on our new 
website;

https://linux.org.au/nominate-for-council/

Several Council members, myself included, are not standing for 
re-election, for various reasons. At the time of writing, we have zero 
(0) nominations for President or Vice President, and only two 
nominations for three OCM positions. Without these positions nominated 
and filled, Linux Australia Council as a team, and Linux Australia as an 
organisation, is less likely to be as effective as it has been in recent 
years. If there's something you would like Linux Australia to be working 
on, now's your chance to put up your hand and make it happen! 
Nominations close 30th December, make sure you nominate soon.

The election this year is being run through our new website. 
Specifically, it's running a custom-written Voting module for CiviCRM - 
a previous email had the link to the open source code if anyone wants to 
inspect it.

We've done our best to bring over accounts from MemberDB and to merge 
duplicates, but if you can't log in to the new website Member Area to 
nominate or vote, then let me know, or use the Contact Form on the 
website. We've still got quite a few inquiries to respond to, so thanks 
in advance for your patience.

Our wonderful Secretary Sae Ra has recently sent out information about 
our upcoming AGM, including a call for agenda items. Please let her know 
if there are any items you wish to be added to the agenda.

This year's AGM also contains a proposed constitutional change. Our 
excellent Treasurer Russell has previously outlined the reason for the 
proposed change, and the method to suggest amendments. The election for 
this will be set up shortly in the Member Area of the new website shortly.

https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/pull/38


        New website and membership system

Thanks to everyone who's already jumped in and had a look around, and 
for the feedback we've already received. We'll be tweaking the website 
to respond to feedback over the next few weeks, and will gradually be 
adding more content, such as the Council minutes. Again, if you have any 
issues, let me know, or use the Contact Forum on the website to let us 
know.

If you have images available under a CC license that you would like to 
be featured on the site, let me know - we picked a few great ones - but 
we know there's lot of great images out there of Linux Australia events, 
so let us know.

Equally, if we've used a CC image of yours, and you're not comfortable 
with this, we'll take it down.


        linux.conf.au

There is still time to register! It will be awesome! Get on it!

https://linux.conf.au


        Linux Australia sponsors Open Hardware Miniconf at linux.conf.au

The Open Hardware folks - Andy Gelme, Jon Oxer, and many others working 
behind the scenes, have something Very Special planned this year to 
celebrate 10 years of Open Hardware Miniconf. In order to both encourage 
diversity of attendance at OHMC, and to keep the price point around $AUD 
100, Linux Australia has sponsored the OHMC up to $AUD 4k.


        Call for bids for LCA2021 extended to end of December

We've extended the Call for bids for LCA2021 to, whelp, Sunday night! So 
if you're thinking of making a bid, get in super super quick.


Again, very best wishes for the holidays,

Kind regards,

Kathy






-- 
Kathy Reid
President
Linux Australia

0418 130 636

president at linux.org.au
http://linux.org.au

Linux Australia Inc
GPO Box 4788
Sydney NSW 2001
Australia

ABN 56 987 117 479

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