This is a sad day for SLUG, IMHO.

On Sat, 2003-09-20 at 16:07, Tony Green wrote:

> Without an active, contributing community, SLUG will be driven solely by
> the committee, succeeding only if they succeed. Though we have
> envisioned "SLUG as a Free Software project", built upon everyone's
> contributions, it seems that the group's expectations differ.

Jeff has inspired me to be more involved.  I personally voted for Jeff
due to his enthusiasm and inspiration, let alone his sheer knowledge of
FOSS.  Your success may not have been as obvious and direct however it
was there.  None of us can change the world overnight.

If there was something that the committee expected from us, what did you
want?  I have seen few calls for help except for talks.  Is this a call
to the grass roots to understand exactly what we are in SLUG for.  Grant
talked about hacker parties, perhaps this is a way to revitalise the
roots.  Keep it simple and low key.  I really enjoyed the coding party
we had at a uni a quite a while ago.  Loosely organised and like minded
people doing grass roots things.  Do I personally have the time and
inclination to organise this, no for a variety of reasons not the least
of which I am not an organiser.  The committee cannot expect others to
step up without leadership.

The apathy appears when things do not go forward.  What are the
objectives of SLUG?  What are the targets that we are trying to reach? 
Who are the people that we are targeting as new members?

If we are targeting Sydney as our user base then we need an attitude
transplant.  I was pleased to see a constant stream of answers to a
range of questions lately.  Frankly it surprised me that the answers
continued to flow.  Normally the answers can be quite "spiky" at times. 
Even the best of us cannot get the correct words to get a google search
to give us the answers.

If we are targeting technically savy people then we must cater for their
needs.  Coding parties would be a start.  A pure programming list would
help.  It always worries me to post programming questions on the general
list because it would confuse and scare off the more general newbie.  If
a newbie wants to get coding without any knowledge then we have to have
support groups specifically for them.  I have raised this before but one
list cannot cover all.

This is the time that SLUG should regroup and refocus.  Take an
introspective look and work out what SLUG is here for.

-- 
Thanks
KenF
OpenOffice.org developer

I use to fight apathy but now I just don't care anymore.


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