[Luna] The Future of LUNA

[Shane Lofgren]

Shane stands up, removes his hat and applauds Deborah.



On 10/23/06, Deborah Lee Soltesz <dsoltesz at 141.com> wrote:
>
>
> >At 09:21 PM 10/23/2006, Patrick wrote:
>
> >Forgive me for being snarky, but how many USGS employees, "people"
> >attended when it was at Bookman's? I can remember Ernest for sure who
> >was a pop-in from time to time, but that's it.
>
> I love snarky. Hmmmm As I recall, when it was at Bookman's, I'd see posts
> a
> few minutes before a meeting that said "Uh, are we meeting tonight or
> what?" -- no, I wasn't going to skip my afternoon off (or leave work hours
> early, as the case may have been) to go to the wrong side of town (I live
> on the far east side) to a meeting that might not exist. That was my
> motivation for pushing so hard for a meeting schedule I could set a
> cronjob
> by.
>
> >I have met people that I would never have
> >crossed paths with due to this group. The networking available to
> >someone interested in Linux is powerful.
>
> This is exactly my point Patrick -- in LUNA's current incarnation, this
> isn't happening, and this was one of the several motivations some of the
> USGS folks had for getting involved. When most of the meetings I've been
> at
> over the last several months have been attended by maybe four or five
> people, and only one or two of those is *not* a USGS person (hell, at
> least
> once, it was just the USGS folks), something's not working, and it's
> certainly not a scenario where we're going to meet new folks, new friends,
> network, etc. In the current scenario, the networking's not powerful at
> all, it's non-existent. Yes, I've met a handful of really great folks, but
> I haven't seen any of you for months.
>
> Ernest's hope in providing a new location when Bookman's became a problem
> was to inject new energy into the group, help it grow, and turn the focus
> to computing instead of just socializing. Our intent was not to take over
> the group, just to provide the resources of our facility as a venue for
> meetings, presentations, activities, etc. Unfortunately, the lack of
> participation is causing the whole thing to crash.
>
> In my opinion, the "old timers" (which doesn't include me - I'm one of
> those pop-in lurkers, and *gasp* an out of the closet Windows user to
> boot)
> are the ones who carry the most weight -- I encouraged this discussion to
> go out to the general list to make sure you, Curtis, and the rest would be
> involved. It's your group, you formed it, you're the ones who kept it
> going
> all these years. Either the group can try to be an active LUG, or it can
> be
> an intermittent social club at the local coffee house with an InstallFest
> once in a blue moon attended by two folks who aren't already LUNA members.
> If folks want it to be active, that means more than one or two people need
> to pitch in and provide support for activities.
>
> I've already blown my wad, skipping my afternoon off once a month to be
> available for meetings (missing an afternoon hike to stay at work late
> puts
> me in major karma debt with hubbie), trying to get an InstallFest in the
> works, trying to keep regular meetings going after Ernest left, and trying
> to come up with new ideas for energizing the group. If it hadn't been for
> Kyle's energy, I would have given up and pushed to move the meetings back
> to west Flag months ago. If the group wants to try to *do* something,
> fantastic, I'm in.
>
> >I personally attend fewer meetings since it was cut to one a
> month...Those
> >with the shortest commute seem to show up.
>
> Moving to a bi-monthly meeting, one "formal" (USGS) and one "social"
> (coffee shop or whatever) was suggested a couple times. Carolyn and I were
> the only ones who bit at the idea.
>
> >...Open Source and Linux centric and the new people want to change it.
>
> Personally, I support an Open Source and Linux focus -- it's a LUG after
> all. The ideas about "branching out" into other computing topics are
> mainly
> folks' brainstorming to find new ways to expand active participation,
> provide useful information for members, create a pool of interesting
> subjects for presentations and projects, etc. If you'd like to participate
> in that conversation and think you have ideas for increasing membership,
> raising public awareness, and energizing the group, we'd all love to hear
> your input.
>
> deborah
>
>
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>
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