[plug] What would encourage membership of PLUG?

[Peter]

Tim White wrote:
> My wife and I were talking about PLUG after our failed AGM last week. 
> She wanted to know what are the benefits of joining PLUG and why would 
> anyone bother?
> Well, here is what the website says.
>
> *Benefits of joining:*
>
>    * Being a PLUG member entitles you to borrow CDs and books from the
>      PLUG library <http://www.plug.org.au/resources/library>.
>    * You get an account on the club's computers (kettle.plug.org.au and
>      spark.plug.org.au), including web space for your own web pages and
>      an e-mail address @plug.org.au. (See our terms and conditions
>      <http://www.plug.org.au/resources/shell-account> for shell access.)
>    * Free coffee (or other drink) with a kebab at Plaka Café in
>      Northbridge.
>    * PLUG members get a 10% discount at Linux IT
>      <http://www.linuxit.com.au/>.
>    * You also get spiffy card with a penguin on it.
>
>
> So my question is, what more could we offer as a group, for paid 
> members, that would encourage membership? It's not expensive, a year's 
> membership costs $10 (full membership) or $5 (concession). So what 
> would stop people from being paid members?
>
> On a technical side of things, I know with the new server, when it is 
> running, we hope to be running Xen, so we can have a number of Virtual 
> Machines available for people to play with. Is this something that 
> would be attractive to members? On the webserver currently, for less 
> than a $1 a month, you get more hosting space than most cheap hosts 
> give you for $10 a month. (Having said that, it's not an invitation to 
> start hosting large websites with lots of traffic, as all our traffic 
> is kindly donated to us and we wouldn't want to cost our host large 
> amounts in traffic, but I think WAIX traffic is generally acceptable 
> if larger quantities than non-WAIX).
>
> Anyway, I just thought I'd put this out to the sleeping list, and 
> encourage some discussion about it.
>
> What would you want PLUG to offer paid members, that would encourage 
> your membership?
>
> Thanks
>
> Tim
> p.s. I would love it if someone could check about the discounts we 
> advertise that you can get, with Plaka and Linux IT, to see if we can 
> still get them. Also, any other business owners/managers that want to 
> add a discount, please do!
> _______________________________________________
> PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
> http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
> Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
>
>
I agree with many of the previous comments.  To attract new members, 
PLUG needs to be a little more "newbie" orientated.  I think it would 
help to keep the website more up-to date as most people probably need a 
little more time to plan for upcoming events.  Could we have some kind 
of events calendar?  We need to be a little more pro-active in sending 
out invites to meetings.  A reminder (preferably with with talk topic) 
should be sent out at least a week before each meeting so potential 
attendees have plenty of time to plan ahead.

Personally, I like the mailing list but a forum may also be a good 
option, particularly for new members to ask for help.  A forum is 
probably a little easier to navigate (when looking for help) compared to 
searching a mailing list archive (but I could be wrong).

The main reason I don't get more involved is location/distance (and to a 
lesser degree time).  I actively promote Linux through my business and 
and would like to include some of my friends/customers in PLUG related 
activities but (in my case) this would only be possible at a regional 
level.   (see also note above about reminders:  On the odd occasion 
where I may have been able to get to Perth, I received the reminder way 
to late).

As indicated in a previous e-mail (just before the AGM), I would be 
interested in assisting with a Great Southern regional group if we can 
somehow link in to Perth based meetings/activities.  

On the topic of the AGM.....  I didn't get there and have heard nothing 
about what transpired at the meeting.  It would be helpful to know who 
)if anyone) is doing what and if there are gaps.... what are they and 
how can we help (taking into account my comments about location/distance)?

Cheers,
Peter