Hi everybody,
As promised, here's the extended version of the President's Report I
gave at the AGM on Friday.
Sridhar
Sydney Linux Users Group (SLUG) Incorporated
============================================
2009 Annual General Meeting
===========================
Friday 27th March 2009
at Atlassian, 185 Sussex Street, Sydney, 2000
President's Report 2008-2009 by Sridhar Dhanapalan
The 2008/2009 period has been one of stability and consolidation. Our
last two terms were subject to disruptions from venue changes,
unfortunately resulting in a temporary decline in attendance at
meetings. The 2008 period allowed us to solidify our presence at
Atlassian. With its convenient location near Darling Harbour, our
numbers have increased.
Goals
-----
General aims for the past year have been the following
* address the gender imbalance
* increase appeal to normal desktop users
* improve participation rates in SLUG activities and events
* co-operate more effectively with other like-minded groups
A low ratio of women to men is a common scenario for most groups in
IT, but it doesn't have to be this way. It's refreshing to note that
almost half of the 2008 Committee are female. Women's meetups before
the monthly SLUG meetings have contributed to lowering the barrier of
entry into what some might understandably view as a male-dominated
organisation. Consequently, we have been seeing more women at SLUG
events.
Also on the rise is attendance by ordinary desktop computer users.
These are people who are not very technical and just want a computer
that works properly. In the 2008/09 term, we have given increased
importance to SLUGlets to address this sentiment. We have had talks
and demonstrations on various topics (see below), and Melissa Draper
has been moderating the discussion sessions for most of the past
twelve months.
These two points are linked with our efforts to increase the
participation rates in SLUG activities and events. It is very
encouraging to see the appeal of SLUG broadening, and with some effort
we can channel this into scaling our contributions to the wider FOSS
community. A starting point here has been to increase our transparency
as an organisation. Our Web site and wiki have been supplemented with
greater detail on who we are, what we do, and how one can partipate
and contribute. The Planet SLUG blog aggregator (planet.slug.org.au)
has seen a theme overhaul, thanks to Lindsay Holmwood.
SLUG members are active contributors in the wider FOSS community, so
it only makes sense that SLUG as an organisation does so as well. Over
the past year we have built communications channels with a variety of
groups with similar goals. You might notice announcements from, for
example, the SyPy group and Fedora Meetup group arriving through SLUG
mailing lists.
Also high on our agenda are strengthened relations with Linux
Australia. As of the Linux Australia AGM in January, we now have two
SLUG members on the Linux Australia Council. We are also active in the
Council of LUGs ("LugComms") group which seeks to bring Australian
LUGs into direct communication for collective benefit.
Statistics
----------
Our current number of official (paid) members as of March stands at
51. This is sufficient for us to manage a sustainable presence. Our
finances are in the black, currently standing at $1,454.15.
Attendance at meetings has increased, and we typically get over 50
visitors a month.
Perhaps a better indicator of the success of SLUG, however, is the
membership of our mailing lists (lists.slug.org.au). Mailing lists
have proven to be the lifeblood of the group, with many SLUG
participants unable to attend physical meetings but still wanting to
contribute. The numbers for our more active lists are:
announce = 332
slug = 732
activities = 200
slug-chat = 218
coders = 155
Also not to be ignored is the SLUG IRC channel (#slug on freenode).
IRC continues to be a central forum for SLUG participants to debate
and give/receive assistance.
Meetings
--------
SLUG is fortunate to have a large and passionate community working on
a variety of interests. This has granted us with an impressive pool of
talent from which to draw talks.
Speakers at SLUG in 2008/09 included:
March: Pia and Jeff Waugh
April: Matthew Palmer; Martin Visser
May: Zachary Zeus; Silvia Pfeiffer; Sonia Hamilton
June: Tim Ansell (replacement for Michael Pamphilon); Robert Collins;
Ken Wilson
July: Nick Nicholas; Erik de Castro Lopo
August: Roger Salisbury; Andrew Boag; Sonia Hamilton
September: Lindsay Holmwood; Peter Chubb
October: Jeff Waugh; Ken Yap
November: Mary Gardiner; John Ferlito
December: (no meeting, as usual)
January: Robin Gareus
February: Jamie Wilkinson (x2)
March: Lindsay Holmwood
Our sincere gratitude goes out to everyone who volunteered to speak,
particularly to those who were only given short notice :)
Events
------
Of course, SLUG is more than just monthly meetings, mailing lists and IRC.
Document Freedom Day was observed in Sydney with an event jointly
hosted by SLUG, the Internet Society of Australia (ISOC-AU) and Google
Australia. It was hosted at Google's Sydney office, and speakers
included federal Senator Kate Lundy and David Vaile of the Cyberspace
Law and Policy Centre at UNSW. As co-host, I delivered a talk on
behalf of SLUG about what document freedom is about and how it relates
to SLUG and free software.
SLUG once again enabled Linux Australia to make a strong presence at
Sydney trades shows.
At the Education Expo in June, we built upon the success established
in previous years. The appeal of free software is continually
broadening, with many parents, teachers and children already familiar
with some projects. Several companies at the show were even using
Linux to power their products and/or displays. The largest stand on
the show floor had about a dozen kiosks which were all running Ubuntu.
Children's edutainment software proved to be a strong drawcard again,
with parents having to drag their children away from the fun displays
of Supertux and Tux Of Math Command. Of course, we didn't let them
leave without a copy for themselves.
The Linux Australia stand at the Education Expo was managed by myself.
CeBIT Sydney was a similar story. Ostensibly a business IT exposition,
CeBIT is largely a general technology trades show. The Open CeBIT
portion, dedicated to free and open source solutions, contained a
number of community stands. Stands for Linux Australia, Open Source
Industry Australia, Drupal and Joomla were staffed at least in part by
SLUG participants. With an entire mini-conference, the image of FOSS
to the general populace was greatly enhanced.
The Linux Australia stand at CeBIT was managed by Lindsay Holmwood.
Women's Meetups occur prior to SLUG meetings. Organised by Melissa
Draper and Mary Gardiner, they have been instrumental in increasing
the attendance of women to SLUG meetings.
Our traditional December meetup in lieu of a monthly meeting was well
attended. The venue was the James Squire Brewhouse on Darling Harbour,
and a couple of dozen people made an appearance.
Other events participated in by SLUG members include:
* linux.conf.au
* Foundations of Open Media Software (FOMS) conference
* OSDC conference
* Barcamp Sydney
* WordCamp
* Ruxcon
* Coding and Camping
I'd like to express my gratitude to our community, without whom all
the great things we have achieved over the past year could not have
been accomplished. As always, our door is open if you'd like to help
out - that's the essence of community!
We've done some amazing stuff in the past year, and I'm certainly
looking forwards to us building upon that in 2009.
Sridhar Dhanapalan
SLUG President
--
Bring choice back to your computer.
http://www.linux.org.au/linux
--
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