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Hello all,<br>
<br>
A big thank you to all who turned up last night for the PLUG AGM,
and the ten or so people who watched live on line.<br>
<br>
While Peter is to preparing the formal minutes of the AGM, I thought
I'd bring you up to speed with my take on the evening.<br>
<br>
First up, we didn't get the required number of members to be able to
proceed with the AGM, so indeed what we have is a meeting that will
be followed with an additional meeting next week at the same time ad
venue, and should we again not have thirty people, the committee
can wait 30 minutes and then proceed. This follow up meeting is
somewhat of a formality; it's what happened last years (2011), and
we moved and accepted all votes and elections from the 'main'
meeting.<br>
<br>
Our venue last night was our first meeting at City West Lotteries
House, and it was a great facility for us. A large space, clean,
ground floor, exterior access, plenty of parking, train station 20
metres away, centrally located, Internet access... for $90 for the
evening (through last nights was complimentary in lieu of the $181
joining fee as an affiliate member of Lotteries House). The general
consensus from the meeting was that we should stick here for future
meetings. They have smaller rooms available - and I returned today
to inspect them; they are definitely smaller, probably catering for
around 10 -15 people, and no wired internet access (wifi MAY reach
that far, probably not...).<br>
<br>
A/V crew had one PC fail on the night so there was no clear capture
of slides for the evening, hopefully this was somewhat visible from
one of the cameras we had functioning. We will get video available
in the next few days hopefully. Latest update (yesterday) on the
Lotteries Grant for the A/V project is that it's going to the Board
for approval on Feb 9, and then off to the Premier for his
signature; then we can go shopping. Well done to Craig and Euan for
getting this production done - more volunteers needed!<br>
<br>
I gave an overview of the membership level, up from 22 in January
2011 to 76 in December2011. We covered the events we've had (Quiz
Night, PLUG Social meetings at The Moon & Six Pence, Workshop,
BBQ, etc), the services we've offered through or generous supporting
sponsors for co-lo space and bandwidth, and of course thanked all
who gave a presentation this year, organised an event, or just paid
their membership fees!<br>
<br>
Thanks to Jason for his Acting Treasurers report; as shown in the
presentation we ended the year down slightly on last years revenue
at around $400 down - but if you exclude our one off investment of
around $1500 on the A/V project, we're looking pretty good (some of
these funds are still earmarked for bringing another speaker from
interstate). <br>
<br>
Next up, the elections. Jason Nichols has decided to not stand for
re-election this year, so he was nominated as returning officer.
Here's the results:<br>
<br>
<ul>
<li>President: James Bromberger</li>
<li>Vice President: Euan de Kock</li>
<li>Treasurer: Nick Bannon</li>
<li>Secretary: Peter Lyons</li>
<li>OCMs: Alastair Irvine, Craig Inches, and Luke John</li>
</ul>
<br>
Our thanks goes to Mark, Jason, Daniel, Tim and Patrick for their
time on the Committee in 2011 (and previously).<br>
<br>
These results are technically <i>provisional </i>based upon the
need for "special measures" to adopt these results formally, and
then submit them to Fair Trading.<br>
<br>
The proposed constitution was also unanimously (again, <i>provisionally</i>)
approved; after the "special measures" meeting this too must be
presented to Fair Trading for their approval; after which some of
the bigger points that people would like to tackle in the
constitution can be reviewed. Our thanks to Alastair and Peter for
this work here.<br>
<br>
We had a lot of good ideas floating around at the conclusion of the
AGM, and hopefully people will be able to bring a few of thee ideas
to fruition. One surprising input (to me) was the feedback that our
membership fee is still way too low at $20/year full ($10/year
conc). I'd tend to agree, but the membership can discuss this with
review leading up to the June/July time if we want to change this
again. I believe now we have enough revenue (if we can sustain the
76 members we have) to continue to use City West Lotteries house and
cover our other expenses; but it's up to everyone on list to try to
help keep the drive and enthusiasm going, and keep membership
growing.<br>
<br>
Last night's venue was organised by Luke John (who joins committee
for 2012) - thank you for the leg work in getting this sorted.<br>
<br>
The next committee meeting will be an on-line meeting on using
mumble on mumble.plug.org.au, at this stage set for Monday 23rd
January at 7:30pm. Generally everyone is welcome to attend and
listen or contribute.<br>
<br>
Thank you all. Let's keep growing this and getting fabulous
speakers. Next month: Fremantle Challenger Tafe for Martin Dougiamas
and Moodle. March may be our National Broadband Network
discussion/panel (if we can get confirmation from the parties we've
been talking to), and April is looking like we'll rope Ian Kent into
something about AutoFS.<br>
<br>
James<br>
<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></div>
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