At 09:02 04/21/2005 -0700, Carl Lowenstein wrote: [snip] >I think that Claude Mathis must enjoy stirring things up. A >frustrated middle-manager, I suppose.
No. From my dealings with Claude he is actually a level headed guy, low key and has the job of SDMUG president the way Neil is president of KPLUG - because no one else wants the job. I believe the real factor behind the SDMUG break-away is probably Rory Ivers and his followers who somehow believe making SDMUG independent will make things "better". The reality is that SDMUG is suffering catastophic membership losses and down to less than a third of where they were only a few years ago. The really big issue for SDMUG pulling out of SDCS will be the money. By law (United States Federal law and California state law) any and all moneys and assests held by SDMUG are really in fact held by SDCS under a common tax ID number as part of the 501(c)(3). This is where things get tricky. Last year, right before SDMUG staged the takeover, there was about $18,000 in the general SDCS treasury and I'm not sure how much is held by SDMUG. Someone should have their financial statement or we can get it since it has to be public. I can see where if SDMUG breaks away, they (meaning SDMUG) will try and take all the SDMUG money with them. The way it would happen would be if a new SDMUG, henceforth called NEWMUG, were to form as a 501(c)(3) and the SDCS Board of Directors would gift them all that money. I'm not sure it's a bad thing, but to me it doesn't make much sense. SDMUG can control the SDCS Board through sheer numbers, they have already gotten what they want with the bylaw changes, and having the other SIGs pitch in with money to offset the costs of being a 501(c)(3) can only make things better. I think it's time for Neil to contact the other SIG leaders and arrange a special meeting with Claude. Actually, now that we have two SDCS Board members, they can call for a special Board meeting to discuss a single topic issue, in this case the breakaway of SDMUG. This has the potential to either blow up with catastrophic consequences or will fizzle and leave us as we currently are. Gus -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-steer
