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Hello PLUG,<br>
<br>
I gave a rather long (*yawn*) <i>News round-up</i> at Tuesday's
meeting, and I felt I should reproduce it here for you (and <font
color="#cc0000"><b>highlight</b> </font>any changes <i>since</i>
Tuesday).<br>
<br>
<b>AV Project</b><br>
The video project now has a reasonable amount of equipment, mostly
donated (Thanks to <i>L-3 Nautronix</i> for an old PCI video card
on Tuesday) or on temporary loan. The group has had a workshop at
the end of April, and will probably hold one per month to test all
equipment and try and improve the process. We keep saying we're
applying for grants, but we're still also trying to get up to speed
on what equipment we're after that would make up this grant --
hopefully something we'll sort out this month. AV Project did record
the May presentation by Carl on IPv6; <b><font color="#cc0000">we
did end up with a bit of a hum/buzz on the audio which we'll try
and improve for next time, but thevideo (all 200+MB in 1:19) is
at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.plug.org.au/video/2011/IPv6-talk-1pass-slower-28.mp4">http://www.plug.org.au/video/2011/IPv6-talk-1pass-slower-28.mp4</a></font><br>
</b><br>
<b>PLUG Committee Changes<br>
</b>With the announcement of Jason Nichols becoming Deputy
Treasurer, we also put out a clal for additional Ordinary Committee
Mmebers, and <font color="#cc0000"><b>Daniel Harmsworth (of
Artifactory and Central Tafe Lecturer fame) has volunteered to
step up to committee</b></font>. Thanks Daniel.<br>
<br>
<b>Association Administrivia<br>
</b>At the April meeting we announced we had just got PLUG organised
with its own PO Box; we've now notified Fair Trading and our Bank
(Bendigo) of our change of address, and Jason/Peter are organising
informing the ATO for our ABN record. Many thanks to Mark G who has
let PLUG use his personal PO box for some while.<br>
<br>
<b>Next Social Event<br>
</b>For want of a better name, "PLUG in the Pub" is on again this
month on Monday 23rd May at The Moon & Six Pence in the city. I
think we'll be there from "Beer O'Clock" until late. PLUG in the pub
is every two months, and we've pretty much settled on the Moon &
Six Pence as a venue (but we're open to suggestions).<br>
<br>
<b>Scheduled PLUG Presentations/Talks<br>
</b>Next month (June) we're at IBM where Indulus Bernstein will be
showing us what High Performance Computing (HPC) things that he and
IBM have been up to. We're being hosted by IBM at their West Perth
offices on Hay Street. We'll be <font color="#cc0000"><b>starting
at the earlier time of 6:30pm</b></font>, as a result of
feedback we've had. AV team will be trying to stream this live. In
July, James Henstridge will be presenting Ubuntu One, the "<i>personal
cloud</i>". Later int he year we'll be potentially flying a well
known, high profile, accomplished developer in from over east to
give a talk - and from feedback we've had, we'll be covering the
costs by selling tickets to this event. There are real costs
involved (flights, hotel), and Daniel Harmsworth has volunteered to
coordinate ticket sales, promotion, etc. I'll let him post out about
the details of WHO and WHEN.... <i>RSN</i>.<br>
<br>
<b>Polling for feedback<br>
</b>I've run a few short impromptu polls to try and get some
measured feedback recently. The results are: people would prefer
meetings to be more centrally located with public transport, start
at 6:30pm instead of 7:30pm (which we'll try and do for the IBM
presentation), and include a set of "lightning talks" (5 minutes or
less; again we'll do this after every presentation from now on).
We've been very mobile with PLUG meetings for the last few months,
but we'll probably start to settle down again soon into one
locaiton. The moving around has shaken things up and given some
people a less reasons to not come along! Meeting sizes have DOUBLED
in 4 months! Membership has DOUBLED in 4 months!! Woot!!!<br>
<br>
<b>Branding/Logo/Visual Identity<br>
</b>For the last few years, the only logo that people seem to have
been able to lay their hands on for PLUG has been the small image on
the web site. We're going to try and update/refresh this, and Tim
Bowden has volunteered to administer a Logo Competition, details of
which I've asked Tim to send out to the list <i>RSN</i>. Please
submit your entires early; we'll be looking to make up posters and
banners for use at meetings as soon as we can.<br>
<br>
<b>PLUG Services<br>
</b>We've recently one of PLUGs old servers, Shameless, and put it
on IPv6. We're about to launch a new "user shell box", "Bath" (yep,
bath.plug.org.au) which will also be available on the IPv6 network.
We hope to get the web site (on Pot.plug.org.au) at some stage on
IPv6. And lastly, as part of discussions on Tuesday evening, we
moved to install an <font color="#cc0000"><b>Urban Terror game
server</b></font> (email last night about this). We have a
Mumble server (aka Murmur) running on <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.plug.org.au">www.plug.org.au</a> too if you'd
like to muti-way voice chat. Want more services? Suggest it! Even
better, volunteer to admin it! remmber, many PLUG people are on IRC
at #plug on irc.plug.org.au (GimpNet). <br>
<br>
<b>Volunteers needed: AV Project<br>
</b>Want to help produce the PLUG videos? Got a passion for audio,
lighting, video, directing, broadcasting? Please sign up to the AV
mailing list, and help out. No experience necessary. The AV project
is an attempt to get PLUG's presentations available to remote
members, and even local ones who cant be there on the night. Its
also good practice so we have a team of people ready should any
conference return to Perth. If the AV team is healthy and producing
good content, then that's a reasonable sign that PLUG may be ready
to run LCA again...<br>
<br>
<b>Volunteers needed: Workshop/InstallFest<br>
</b>If you would like to organise a Workshop (bring your computer
and get someone to help you with a problem) or InstallFest (bring
your computer and get it installed) please let us know. Its been a
while since PLUG has held either. Venues are around, just someone
needs to manage promotion, scheduling, etc.<br>
<br>
<b>Volunteers needed: Software Freedom Day<br>
</b>Do you understand the <i>Free as in Freedom</i> concept of open
source. Do you appreicate that its not just "zero cost" software,
but a community of sharing, improving, and using software? Would you
like to express this to others? read up on Software Freedom Day
(which is a day in September, or so) and coordinate PLUGs
involvement.<br>
<br>
<b>Volunteers needed: PLUG web site content<br>
</b>Want to organise our web site? Help Lance (our librarian) get
links to relevent local mirrors and information? Please email
committee and we'll set you up with a Drupal account on our web site
and give you editing rights. <br>
<br>
<b>Volunteers needed: PLUG Promotion<br>
</b>There's loads of people using Linux now. Why aren't they PLUG
members? Most haven't heard of PLUG. Why not? What should PLUG do
for them (and you) that it's not doing now? Have you mentioned to
your friends/colleagues/fellow students that next month you're going
to IBM to see a presentation on high performance computing. Ask them
to come along!<br>
<br>
<b>Volunteers needed: Other activities</b><br>
Want to get other geeks/hackers/enthuisusts together for some fun?
here are some suggestions - if you have something you'd like to run,
please contact us:<br>
<ul>
<li>Paint-balling</li>
<li>Barbecue</li>
<li>Dinner</li>
<li>Beginners talks? "Getting started with <i>$software_package</i>"?<br>
</li>
<li>LCA group trip (see below)</li>
<li>Other projects??<br>
</li>
</ul>
<br>
<b>Linux.conf.au 2012: Ballarat<br>
</b>Linux.conf.au is the national, annual Linux & Open Source
conference, run by a regional Linux User Group on behalf of Linux
Australia (the national body). Each year its in a different city -
and way back in 2003 we (PLUG) ran it. In January 2012 its in
Ballarat, an hour outside of Melbourne. Its time to start thinking i
you're looking to attend, and how you're going to get there, and if
you're going to book flights - should you team up with other PLUG
people and go as a group.<br>
<br>
<b>PLUG health<br>
</b>As you can see from the above list, there is a lot going on. The
main PLUG mailing list has some 370 subscribers, but sadly only
around 44 financial members who have paid their $10/year ($5
concession). That means our annual budget is around $400/year, which
if you divide that by 12 meetings a year works out at less than
$34/meeting. Its for that reason we don't hire a venue - we just
can't afford it in a sustainable way. We have around $2,300 in the
bank, most of which came from Computer Angels. We're earmerking some
of these funds for the posters/banners mentioned above, plus
covering costs of PO Box, etc. If you've read this far in this
email, then you're probably intersted enough in PLUG that you should
make your contribution, and be counted as a member. Details on the
web site.<br>
<br>
<b>Membership fee increase<br>
</b>For the last 10+ years, PLUG membership has been $10 full, $5
concession per year. We're going to take ont he first increase of
this, and make it $20/year full, and $10/year concession. At the
meeting I announced we'd be doing this from the end of the year, but
the committee meeting moved to <font color="#cc0000"><b>bring this
date forward to the 1st of July</b></font>. That means you have
about a month and a bit to get your current PLUG membership up to
date at current prices ($10/$5). We're also not processing
multi-year memberships at $10/$5. I'm sure you'll agree that $20 is
not a huge sum of money, but it does help us to cover the costs of
making PLUG do the interesting stuff (such as that listed above, and
everything else you've seen in the last 4 months, like the Quiz
Night).<br>
<br>
<b>Short Summary<br>
</b>Since the above is so very long, here's a summary:<br>
<ul>
<li>PLUG in the Pub, Monday 23rd May (its in the PLUG Calendar on
the web site)<br>
</li>
<li>Next meeting at IBM, West Perth, on HPC</li>
<li>Get your PLUG membership now before it goes up to $20/year</li>
<li>Logo competition starting; details from Tim B real soon now</li>
<li>Special presentation event towards end of year; details from
Daniel H real soon now</li>
<li>Video from Tuesday's IPv6 talk now on the web site. Thanks to
Carl for giving the presentation</li>
</ul>
<br>
<br>
If you have questions, feel free to email or call me, or email the
committee (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:committee@plug.org.au">committee@plug.org.au</a>). Or just reply on list and we'll
all discuss! next committee meeting is via IRC at 7:30pm WST on
#plug on irc.plug.org.au (Gimpnet); feel free to lurk there (or
chime in with input!).<br>
<br>
<b>My thanks goes to the continuing efforts of the committee to keep
up with invigorating PLUG, and to people volunteering to help with
various aspects.</b><br>
<br>
James<br>
PS: I may follow up this message with more if people poke me to
remind me of even more stuff I have forgotten! :)<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<em>Mobile:</em> +61 422 166 708, <em>Email:</em>
james_AT_rcpt.to<br>
PLUG President 2011: <a href="http//www.plug.org.au">http//www.plug.org.au</a><br>
Perth.pm Organiser 2011: <a href="http://perth.pm.org">http://perth.pm.org</a></div>
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