On Tue, 2004-05-18 at 15:12, Rob Lembree wrote: > Hey maddog, et. al., > I'm not trying to rid myself of the job per se. I do however > feel as though my lack of time is impeding the group, and think > that letting someone with more time and energy lead would be > the right thing to do.
I don't think its impeding the group. The group pretty much operates the way it always has. It just keeps moving along in a seemingly amorphic massless blob. For some reason, the image of maddog herding cats comes to mind. > I would like to see small groups of people be able to address > things that they believe in, just as Ed's doing. I do think though that > some minor amount of organization would be helpful. Ed's comment > that our lack of organization is a major impediment to dealing with > other organizations is spot on. > > Should we fix this? I think we should. I think that organizations > need external reasons for existence. Doing the kind of stuff that Ed's > doing seems to me the kind of thing that GNHLUG should be doing. > I'm happy if Ed tells people that he represents GNHLUG, but is my > opinion > the only one? GNHLUG appears to be a good example of not requiring an external reason for existence! > How do we fix this? I'm not sure. I thought that the quarterly > meetings > gave us the state-wide continuity, but we don't have quarterly meetings > anywhere but Nashua now Personally, and I'm speaking just for myself here, I would say that we don't have the checks and balances in place to prevent GNHLUG from creeping into a big formal money-conscious organization that loses sight of its individuals. Until we have those checks and balances in place, I'm not sure we should become more formal. I don't know what those checks and balances should be. But it seems that maybe we need to explore what people are afraid of in a more formal organization. And this needs to be done, and the issues addressed before we shoot for the formal papers again. If ever. > Should we continue as an umbrella group of smaller groups? > Probably, but I'd like to hear from others on this one. I believe we should. The "smaller groups" (aka chapters, local lugs, ...) that are still around are sufficiently independent and have learned how to stand on their own feet. > What benefit does GNHLUG offer CentraLUG and SLUG? > (someone chime in here) Now? Just the DNS, web site and mailing lists. I'm not aware of any speaker exchanges between the chapters, or quarterly participation (other than as attendees). And I know that CentraLUG and SLUG have their own web sites, so web sites may not be useful to them. Another thing GNHLUG provides is an uncertain degree of comfort. Having been in the role of both chapter lead and GNHLUG chairperson, I can say its nice having a body of people with which to consult with (even though it can be like talking to a brick wall at times). > If we organize, what's the organization? We spoke about this before, > have a chair, and the "board" is the set of local LUG chairs, plus some > other interested parties. We could have one formal organization having the purpose of interfacing to those external organizations that require formal "things". And that formal organization would be controlled by the chapters and maybe a body of "at large" members. And alternatively, we could have what we currently have. (But I believe we're denying ourselves of some resources if we don't get a non-profit status.) > thoughts for now. Now you have my $0.02 too - can't even get candy for that price! --Bruce
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part
