Paul's response. At this point, we agreed to send all these
thoughts to you folks for thought, comment, and to seed a
good meeting on Monday at 1900 at Marthas.
I'll make reservations in the name 'Tux' on Monday after
I have a headcount.
--
Rob Lembree Metro Link Incorporated
29 Milk St. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Nashua, NH 03064-1651 http://www.metrolink.com
Phone: 954.660.2460 Alternate: 603.577.9714
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--- Begin Message ---
In a message dated: 03 Jan 2003 13:00:32 EST
Rob Lembree said:
>> (I'm a stickler on proper punctuation)
>
>There should be no punctuation! [...snip...] It's not a list of 3 things.
Oh, duh! Sorry. I tend to see the world as lists...
>> We may risk losing a large number of the existing "membership"
>
>I don't think that this'll happen. We'll still do a lot of that.
>I do expect that the people who see it as a chance to get away from
>the kids for a few beers and a burger won't be the same people doing
>things though. Any organization's going to have slackers. ;-)
Maybe 'lose' isn't the right word. Perhaps 'alienate'. However,
it's irrelevant, I'll get to why below...
>But we've never actively gone out to bring people in. Implicitly,
>it's been a closed meeting. How would anyone ever know about it
>without first showing some interest?
Okay, agreed. We haven't really, but for a few which we've had md's
help with PR (e.g. Ximian).
>> So if the local event is "Intro to Linux", the upcoming meetings
>> should be something which expands upon that idea. Maybe Nashua does
>> "Connecting to the Internet w/ Linux", SLUG does "Intro to Office
>> Suites", and maybe Keene does something like "Sync'ing your PDA".
>
>Fair enough.
That sounds rather hesitant on your part, as if you're conceding a
compromise. Do you disagree? Or do you see this becoming an issue
where the 'kernel' begins dictating the scheduling of the 'threads'
(iow, we the board begin assigning talks to chapter meetings?).
If so, I think we can work something out which is acceptable to everyone
(it might be a good start to have all chapter chairs as members of
the board).
>> > * Formalizing The Organization
>
>> The AB could be the 'inittab' which 'execs processes' (i.e. events).
>> Each 'spawned process' would have 'threads' (i.e. the monthly
>> meetings around the state). There would obviously need to be 'daemons'
>> (the organizing body for the 'process') overseeing everything.
>
>You and I are the kernel. ;-)
For now :) I'd like to see the SLOC increase over time ;)
>> > It's not clear to me why we declined to proceed with this,
>> > but I suspect that there was a reluctance, or perhaps
>> > the lack of a perceived need, to formalize our
>> > organization.
>>
>> Well, that's part of it. I think the biggest reason was that people
>> like not having any formality associated with the group, and that
>> given the current "charter/mission" fomalization, and therefore, NFP
>> filing was both overkill, and too much effort for no real perceived
>> gain.
>Isn't that what I said basically?
Errr, yeah, but it wasn't verbose enough ;)
>> I agree whole-heartedly with this sentiment. However, I think it's
>> also going to require a *lot* of work and we're likely to lose a
>> significant portion of existing "members" given the fomalization/
>> re-structuring we are proposing.
>
>I don't think that anyone's going to leave because of this. As I said,
>I think it'll only affect the volunteers.
As I stated above, 'lose' is probably too strong, even 'alienate'
isn't quite right. Basically, you're right, it only affects the
volunteers. The 'membership' as currently loosely defined is, at
most, likely to grumble and complain that things are no longer
interesting to them (though they've been doing that for about 8 years
now, and no one's 'left' :)
So, I concede your point, at most, we're likely to get a lot of
grumbling which is no different than we've ever had before.
>The membership doesn't need to see the formality, really. As long
>as the organizers are organized, the only part that everyone else
>will see is 1) being asked to serve eventually, and 2) voting for
>leaders, neither of which is compulsory.
This leads me to ask about your vision of the organizational hierarchy?
As discussed we have the "membership at large" which boils down to
those people who either take part in the mailing list or show up to
meetings (or both).
Then there's the core activity board which provides direction. I'm
thinking that this should initially consist of at least the chapter
chairs. This allows a very hands-on level of co-operation between
our existing monthly meeting infrastructure and our planned monthly
events.
Then there's us, the 'kernel' as you put it :) So, we have:
kernel (GNHLUG officers)
|
inittab (Chapter Chairs maybe others)
/ \
(chapter chairs) spools[1] daemons (event organizers)
/ \
(chapter mtgs) threads processes (events)
Going forward, I see that the 'kernel' and 'inittab' would be elected
inviduals (elected by whom remains tbd).
'daemons' would be volunteers, but 'spools' could be either elected
by their chapter or volunteers, depending upon how
they want to do it.
[1] I hate the name 'spool' for a chapter chair, but I couldn't
think of anything else as cool as 'daemon'.
(I rejected 'garbage collector' :)
> Where do you want me? :)
>
>Right where you are at the moment.
Well, okay, but it's snowing pretty hard out there and I was thinking
of taking off early :)
>> (personally, I'm a little tired of the chapter thing ;)
>
>Well, we can share that role too, if you'd like.
Well, it depends on how closely integrated we get the charity events
to the monthly meetings. If they're closely tied together, then it
really just comes down to calling and scheduling the room.
It's the getting speakers part that's a pain.
>I'd like to get a talk for the Jan quarterly meeting (propose Jan. 22?)
>about Linux advocacy, and how we view the LUG fitting in. We need
>to present this somehow, and that may be a good time for a call to
>arms.
The only concern I have is that typically quarterly meetings need
decent name recognition to attract a large group of people. If we
announce that we're going to discuss organizational politics, I'm
skeptical of a large turn out.
>Are you OK with my sending out what I wrote, with this email
>following (i.e., we got the discussion going?)
Sure.
--
Seeya,
Paul
--
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but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away.
If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!
--- End Message ---
