For whatever it's worth, my involvement would be increased if the location were more centralized. I don't know about others, but travelling from Hull to Algonquin has a limited appeal. Also, a hackathon sounds pretty interesting. I've been toying with the idea of starting a 'hack space' with more space/tools than the current Ottawa hackspace offers. This would be a decent balance and would certainly get my attention(and I imagine others as well). Jeff On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 9:41 AM, Rob Echlin <rob [ at ] echlin [ dot ] ca> wrote: > The Annual General Meeting of the Ottawa Carleton Linux Users Group > will he held April 5, 2012 at Algonquin College, Room T130, Building T. > starting at 1900. > > Below is the proposed agenda for the 2012 AGM. There are two important > items that we ask members to think about in advance. > > 1) Nominations for Board members -- we always need capable volunteers to > serve on the board. > > 2) Town Hall discussion on the future of OCLUG > > While we remain an active group, the nature of our activities is changing. > In particular, with Linux much more widely used and appreciated, along with > active forums for help and discussion, there is less incentive to > participate > in a "live" meeting. Notably, the 2011 AGM did not manage to provide a full > slate of board members. During the year we added one Board member who had > indicated willingness at the AGM, but needed to check availability, and > John > Nash participated (non-voting) to provide continuity. This is, however, a > less than desirable situation. > > The Board therefore proposes that the AGM hold a discussion to provide > direction for > - adapting OCLUG to the realities we are experiencing. These afflict > many volunteer organizations at this time. > - finding volunteers to help run events or to carry out specific tasks > > Some ideas for events that are a little different from our norm: > > - A User Group Festival, in a hall where many Ottawa user groups can > offer information tables and chat with each other and anyone who > comes out. A great day for this is Software Freedom Day on Sat Sept 15. > - a hack-fest, possibly with Group 51, with the hacking activity displayed > and > explained. > - Small, local meetings to help people with computer problems as a way to > find new members. Our outreach has been limited in the last couple of > years, > apart from the Leavitt Memorial Seminar and (possibly) IPv6 Summit. > > We are also exploring how we can do a better job of advertising our > activities, > and John Sebastian Taylor is leading this effort. > > Sadly, we do need a Plan B if there are too few nominees. It is not > entirely > clear what the legalities are if we proceed to an election and there are > too > few Board nominees to provide quorum. Hence it would be better to decide a > course of action during the AGM BEFORE the election if we know there are > too > few nominees. Our constitution requires that our assets be passed to a > similar > organization -- finding one could be difficult. It may also be possible to > appoint some trustees who would monitor a (paid) service to maintain > mailing > lists and web site for Linux-related events in Ottawa for some period > (e.g., > 5 years). There appears to be fairly solid interest in and usage of the > mailing > list, for example, but there is a need for some management thereof. > > We could also revise our organization to do fewer things using fewer > people, > such as small meetings with no speakers, fewer meetings per year, or some > merging of activities with other groups like Computers for Communities. > > The discussion of the future of OCLUG is intended to either rejuvenate the > group or else wind it up in an orderly way. > > == AGM agenda outline > > 1) Financial report > > 2) Annual report > > 3) Future of OCLUG > > 4) Election > > 5) New business > > 6) Adjournment > > ============================ > > 7) Games > > 8) Beer SIG > > -- > Rob Echlin > _______________________________________________ > Linux mailing list > Linux [ at ] lists [ dot ] oclug [ dot ] on [ dot ] ca > http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux >