I see 2 ways to advance LOPSA; Time or Money Money I think the biggest step that LOPSA can make is hiring a part/full time executive director. This cost money.
Time If you don't have the $$ to advance that, then donate time to do what an executive director would be doing. Volunteer time is great, but it is precious, sporadic, and its usefulness depends on the volunteer. I think the one thing LOPSA could do to further its/our aims/agenda/plan for world domination is to hire an ED. The ED doesn't have to be a SysAdmin, actually it probably would be better if they weren't. They would be someone with experience in running a nonprofit. My completely uninformed 30 seconds guess at cost would be 20k a year. I think that is completely doable. That is 400 members at $50 a year. Of course just hiring someone won't solve anything if there isn't a direction from the board and a plan for what they need to do. Regardless: hire someone. /rant over On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 6:39 PM, David Lang <da...@lang.hm> wrote: > If everyone had the priorities that you described, no volunteering would > ever happen :-) > > There are probably a bunch of people who could help with specific tasks or > who could fill in for someone else, but how do they find out what needs to > be done? How much work is needed to get them access to the systems that > they would need to do the work (if it's technical stuff)? > > People volunteer to commit their time, and need to recognize when they are > not going to have time any longer and volunteer to step down from the jobs > they had. In between, they need to be commited to getting the job done. > > do we need a separate mailing list for calls for volunteer help to keep > from flooding the discussion lists and annoying people who don't have time? > > David Lang > > On Wed, 25 Feb 2015, Edward D'Azzo-Caisser wrote: > > Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2015 18:18:04 -0500 >> From: Edward D'Azzo-Caisser <edazzocais...@gmail.com> >> To: Craig Constantine <cr...@constantine.name> >> Cc: Lopsa Discussion <discuss@lists.lopsa.org> >> Subject: Re: [lopsa-discuss] Does LOPSA have a project manager? >> >> Maybe we should turn this around. I don't think we have a project >> management problem, I think we have a doer problem. So it makes more sense >> to wedge someone into the org chart at the bottom, who can be thrown into >> any project that's currently short handed. >> >> Manpower is a resource and LOPSA is completely made up of volunteers. >> Everyone from the board to someone who decides to man the LOPSA table at a >> conference for an hour. That means there's no real impetus to place LOPSA >> ahead of other obligations. I hear the phrase "life comes first!" and it's >> true. I would always choose my job before my volunteer obligations; my >> family before my work obligations; myself before my family obligations. If >> something gets dropped in the mix, it's going to be LOPSA. >> >> Every program already has a chair and a board member to handle the high >> level vision. If the chair needs to take a step back, the board can still >> exert control over the project until a new chair is appointed. Some >> programs even have more than one chair! So that's anywhere between 2 - 3 >> people handling the Project Management aspect of the organization. And if >> that goes away, the only down side is that a program stops *growing*. This >> >> isn't good, but it's by no means the end of the world. >> >> But every LOPSA program also has a minimum set of tasks it needs to >> perform >> in order keep functioning. If all the people who would usually be able to >> perform these tasks vanish because of a surge in work/personal >> responsibilities, a project can become completely ignored. The board >> liaison is still committed by nature of their position, but they're busy >> managing LOPSA as a whole and are more likely than not trying to get more >> manpower into the faltering program. >> >> They wouldn't need to grab a project manager. They need to grab someone to >> handle the low level requests and just keep things trucking. Especially >> since most of the low-level tasks aren't terribly engaging. Ideally, I >> think this should be someone whose priorities are different than most >> LOPSA >> members. Someone less likely to choose something else over LOPSA. Perhaps >> an intern, or an actual paid position now that the organization is debt >> free. >> >> On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 8:47 PM, Craig Constantine < >> cr...@constantine.name> >> wrote: >> >> (disclosure: I'm not a proj mgr, I am not good at pm, and I do not want >>> to >>> be a pm for lopsa.) >>> >>> The more I try to help actually do things, the more I'm working with >>> other >>> volunteers who seem to be very over-worked. (Mind you, it seems they >>> bring >>> this on themselves, rather than it being dumped on.) Several people I've >>> talked to, seem to be pulled between the "doing" and the "managing". >>> >>> So without my spiralling off into examples, does my perception seem right >>> to anyone else? >>> >>> Would it make sense, to try to wedge a general project manager into the >>> LOPSA org chart somewhere? ...someone tasked with keeping the global view >>> of everything we are doing as directed by the Board? ...someone to >>> advocate >>> for resources when they see individual people getting over-burdened or >>> projects stalling? (I'm just free-thinking, not trying implying that's a >>> list of ills suffered by LOPSA.) >>> >>> -- Craig Constantine, http://constantine.name >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Discuss mailing list >>> Discuss@lists.lopsa.org >>> https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >>> This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators >>> http://lopsa.org/ >>> >>> >>> > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.lopsa.org > https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.lopsa.org > https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ > >
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