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<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western"> Dear PLUG,<br>
<br>
Thank you to everyone who turned up on Tuesday night to the <i>PLUG
2011 Annual General Meeting</i>; AGMs are typically pretty dry
and not much fun, but I hope you enjoyed it. We had a decent turn
out which was lovely to see; it was also nice to catch up with a
few old friends whom I haven't seen for a number of years!<br>
<br>
The new committee is currently trying to sort itself out; there
will be a committee meeting on Monday 17th January 2011 from
7:30pm AWST, on IRC (#plug on irc.plug.org.au) and you're welcome
to pop in to the channel if you'd like to listen in or contribute.<br>
<br>
I'd like to thank the previous committee for their time and
effort. I know it has been a difficult year for PLUG; the official
membership numbers reflect this. There are a lot of people lurking
on this mailing list who I would encourage to feel good about
supporting PLUG by becoming a financial member. $10/year is a
nominal membership fee, but without processing a payment for you,
we cannot (legally, under the relevant Act) recognise you as a
member. Without recognised membership, PLUG cannot survive. I hope
we (meaning, you reading this, the committee, and the entire
membership) can instigate some initiatives that give PLUG fresh
life.<br>
<h2>Activities</h2>
If everyone comes and puts their $10 in the "pot", we have a new
challenge; what do we do with the money? It's no good sitting in
the bank earning pretty much no interest. We need ideas, people.
No, transferring it all to your Cayman Island account is not
feasible, sorry. We're looking for ideas that make PLUG do what <b>YOU
</b>would like it to do. Here's some suggestions (they're just
ideas at the moment):<br>
<br>
<ul>
<li>Send a random (financial) member to LCA 2012, where ever it
is; cover flights and accommodation. I think thiat paying a
$10 membership for the chance of this would be a pretty good
return. Right now its a 1:30 chance of winning if we do it -
but I'm hoping those odds will drop if everyone joins up!! :)<br>
</li>
<li>Bring interesting speakers in from over East or overseas.
We'd cover cost, and possibly billet the speaker at one of our
collective houses. Who would you like to speak to? Tridge?
Rusty? JDub? Pia? Someone from laptop.org.au (OLPC)? Others -
please tell us!<br>
</li>
<li>Run an install fest? Who can we appoint as the person to run
this? You'll need to find a suitable venue. We could possibly
supply drinks?</li>
<li>Run a BBQ? <br>
</li>
<li>Run a pub meet (possibly monthly)? That is... a drink and a
chat. How hard is that. Just chose a pub with good transport
options (preferably options so that people have a chance to
get home without driving</li>
<li>Help a charity/school/whatever - there are may out there
that don't have much in the way of tech skills, so a weekend
of setting something up, or developing some LAMP/Java/whatever
software could be invaluable to them??<br>
</li>
</ul>
<br>
Here's where <b>I'd like to get your suggestions, and offers to
RUN something</b>. The PLUG community (all 340+ on the mailing
list) covers a wide spectrum of experience and expectations, and I
would like to have PLUG as a forum and facilitator for all of
those sections of the membership to participate in what they would
like to do. Please send your suggestions to the committee; we can
then put the more popular ones on the web site and try and start a
schedule to do some of them.<br>
<br>
I've had some people jest about another LCA in Perth. Many of you
will remember the success we had in 2003. I know there was an
effort a few years ago which didn't proceed. Organising an LCA is
a 2+ year long project; I personally won't be leading that by
myself, but if we have a group of people who are interested in
doing so, then step up and make yourselves known. I will assist
where possible.<br>
<h2>Representatives to other groups <br>
</h2>
There's a number of relationships with other groups that PLUG
could maintain in the open source community on a semi-official
basis. We need people to step up and liaise with these groups to
represent PLUG, and report back to PLUG. This includes Linux
Australia, SAGE-AU, etc. If you're a member of another group and
would like to represent PLUG, please email the committee (or me).
For example, I am also currently running Perth.pm, the Perth Perl
Mongers (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://perth.pm.org/">http://perth.pm.org/</a>) - but
likewise an informal liaison to the Python group, Java, Port 80,
etc, could potentially also be worthwhile.<br>
<br>
<h2>Communications <br>
</h2>
PLUG's active mailing list has for many years been the main method
of disseminating information, but in the last week or so, the new
Drupal-driven web site has gone live (thanks to Tim). Hopefully
this will make publishing information as easy as possible. Already
we have a calendar published there so you can see details of
meetings (you can subscribe to the Google Calendar as well). I'd
like to get a few more people actively adding content to the web
site - if you have a knack for putting words together, and would
like to help maintain the web site, please let us know. You can
sign up for a Drupal account on the web site now, and then we can
add editing permissions for you.<br>
<br>
We have an IRC channel as mentioned above - "#plug" on
irc.plug.org.au (which is <i>irc.gimp.org</i> for those that care
about the details). You'll normally find a few people idling
around there, so feel free to join.<br>
<h2>Conclusion <br>
</h2>
In summary, here's my initial beg for volunteers:<br>
<ul>
<li>2-3 people to act as Webmaster and actively maintain the web
content & events calendar.<br>
</li>
<li>2 people or so to co-ordinate talks (and venue) for the
year; I'd like to see a 4 months lead on confirmed talks if
possible</li>
<li>2 people or so to organise some social gatherings: pubs,
BBQs, whatever</li>
<li>Other roles as above.... :)</li>
<li>Suggestions for anything else<br>
</li>
</ul>
Our next meeting on <b>Tuesday 8th Feb </b>(the rule remains
"2nd Tuesday of the month") is going to be a wrap up/report on
LCA; we've asked those members who are going to take photos and
gather interesting info (spare hand outs??) and bring this back to
review with everyone else.<br>
<br>
As always, I and the rest of the committee are here to help you
make PLUG into what you would like. You can call my mobile (number
below, daylight hours preferred of course), or email me directly.
I am trying to be at every PLUG meeting (haven't missed any now
since August 2010).<br>
<br>
James<br>
(<i>El Pres 2011</i>)<br>
<br>
-- <br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">Mobile: +61 422 16 708, Email: james_AT_rcpt.to</pre>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Mobile: +61 422 16 708, Email: james_AT_rcpt.to</pre>
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