[plug] PLUG News for December

[James Bromberger]

Hello PLUG,

A big thanks to John McCabe-Danstead for his talk Tuesday night; around
10 of us turned up at UCC at UWA to hear how John's contribution has
started to be used in automated testing.

We had some issues with the AV gear; a recording should be available in
a few days, but I know we missed the first part of the talk (we were
down a few people in getting this set up; perhaps we need another
practice workshop, and a few more volunteers!!).

In recent news, PLUG in the pub at the end of November saw 15 PLUG
people at The Moon & Six Pence for a lively evening, and the PLUG BBQ in
Kings Park on Sunday 4th saw about 6 PLUG members share a BBQ; while it
was a bit warm, it was quite fun.

PLUG membership stands at 75 people - for those subscribed but not a
member, it's just $20/year to help run PLUG ($10/year concession) - see
the PLUG web site to sign up. There's over 350 people on the PLUG
mailing list, so at least 275 could become PLUG members - see
http://www.plug.org.au/membership for details.

Tuesday night marked the final event for the PLUG calendar year 2011;
and our next scheduled event is the Annual General Meeting. Nominations
for the PLUG Committee for 2012 closed on Tuesday just gone as well, and
our honourable Mr Secretary is about to send formal notice of the AGM
and the list of nominees to the mailing list with details of the AGM for
those that didn't see the Public Notice in Tuesday's West (pg 48 or so).
PLUG's current constitution requires that we have at least 30 people
physically present at the meeting; we have booked a venue suitable for
this - but I'll let Peter post this shortly. We're going to grab some
pizza to further entice 30 members to come along. So come along, and
help us (a) have an AGM, and (b) adopt the updated constitution.

I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to running PLUG over
2011; we've defintely had a marked increase in events and activities,
and I hope that you have enjoyed this as much as I have. In particular,
I'd like to thank Jason Nicholls who stepped up to take on the
responsibilities of the Treasurer role for most of 2011. I'd like to
thank Tim White for re-working the membership management scripts and
sorting out Drupal, and the team that has run the PLUG servers over the
year. Also on the "thank you list" is Daniel Harmsworth for organising
the ticketing for the Rusty talk; Tim Bowden for the logo competition,
and of course, everyone who gave a talk for PLUG this year, and everyone
who came to an event. Not to mention, of course, Rusty Russell himself
for not only coming to Perth to talk to PLUG, but not accepting the
funds we'd raised to cover costs but asking us to bring another speaker
to Perth to see us! Those of us going to Linux.Conf.Au in a few weeks
will... press gang someone to come and see us!

I strongly feel that the Linux & Open Source community has much to
offer, and in running PLUG I hope we give a venue to share ideas and
experiences in a friendly environment - at our monthly presentations, at
our social events, and on the email mailing lists - to help further
Linux & Open Source software. There's been a long list of highlights,
but I'll save that for the AGM.


Looking beyond the AGM, we've not left the calendar empty!!

    January: (Social) PLUG in the Pub
    February: (Presentation) Moodle with Martin Dougiamas, at TAFE Fremantle
    March: (Presentation) The NBN Panel Debate, with various people form
    ISPs, Network associations and corporations.... (to be confirmed)
    March: (Social) The PLUG Linux & Open Source-Themed Quiz Night (PLUG
    in the Pub)
    April: (Presentation) Linux Auto-FS presentation with Ian Kent


Of course, if you'd like to run a PLUG event, let committee know and
we'll schedule it in the calendar! Likewise if you'd like to write
articles on the PLUG web site, or help out some way, please email
committee (committee at plug.org.au).


Lastly, who do you think has made the biggest impact on Linux and Open
Souce in Australia this year? We've had a bunch of great speakers -
perhaps nominate one (or more) of them for
http://www.linux.org.au/news/community/rusty-wrench-award-nominations.



Regards,

  James

-- 
/Mobile:/ +61 422 166 708, /Email:/ james_AT_rcpt.to
PLUG President 2011: http://www.plug.org.au <http//www.plug.org.au>
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