[aclug-L] Re: ACLUG

[Greg House <ghouse@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I haven't commented much on this string simply because my involvement with 
ACLUG the last year or so has been limited by family and other commitments, 
which generally prohibit me from attending the meetings.

But I'd like to add my opinion on how things were in the past, when I did 
occasionally attend.

I had the same experience as Dave Wiebe the first couple of meetings I went 
to. Nobody introduced themselves, they listened to the speaker and 
interacted, but it was really impersonal. At one meeting, I asked if people 
could introduce themselves so I could put some faces with names I'd already 
seen on the mailing list. That helped a bit. But the thing that helped most 
of all was simply ignoring that particular discomfort and attending a few 
more meetings. You end up meeting people eventually, even if the group itself 
doesn't do anything to help that happen.

In the early days, with John Goerzen, the meetings were very focused. I think 
that's because he was both a natural leader (administrative) and extremely 
knowledgable. It's hard to have a bad meeting when you have some reasonable 
assurance that 99% of all the questions can and will be answered (correctly). 

I applaud the effort done by Clint, Dale, Jonathan, John, and others to keep 
things going after JG left. They worked hard and tried their best. But they 
didn't have the resources he had as a WSU employee, and the group did seem to 
lose focus. When JG gave most of the presentations, there was a consistancy 
that you don't have with any random member doing one.

I think the biggest thing we could do to unify things at this point would be 
to encourage people to connect with each other. If I know that someone has 
been using a particular feature of Linux a lot, it's very easy to ask about 
it. Perhaps one idea would be to have "member profiles" on the website, to 
give background, experience, and expertise? That might help people find 
"birds of a feather". I also think brief introductions, including name & 
current Linux project at each of the meetings would be helpful.

re: meeting space

Perhaps the best solution would be to find an company that would allow use of 
their facility for this. My company (LSI Logic) hosts the local Mac Users 
Group meetings (about once a month, if I remember correctly) in one of our 
conference rooms after normal business hours. All you need is an employee to 
be responsible and set it up. (Unfortunately, that also means the employee 
has to be there _every single time_ and that couldn't be me.) But hey, I know 
there are more Linux users there then just me. (Want to sponsor this gig, 
Dave? Alden?)

Personally, I think it's a good group and I'd like to see it continue and 
thrive. I've felt bad for some time that I can't participate more, but I just 
flat have too much stuff going on and this is one of my lower priorities. 
FWIW, I've been involved with this group at some level for about 3 years now 
and I have never observed anything to substantiate Patrick Klee's claims 
about exclusivity or power trips. The ACLUG leaders have always treated me 
kindly and have been helpful. They genuinely care about promoting Linux and 
making the group something that's helpful to as many people as possible.

Greg
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