[Klug-general] Future of KLUG, an offer/idea

[Mike Evans]

Putting all the politics to one side for the moment, perhaps I could 
just make a few observations.

1)  Colin is no longer able to put in the work he has in the past (for 
which we are grateful) to arrange and chair monthly KLUG meetings on a 
regular basis.  At present there does not appear to be anyone in a 
position or willing to do that role in that way.

2)  There may well be a demand for a student based Linux or Open Source 
society, such as Luc proposed.  For various political and ideological 
reasons there are objections to KLUG becoming that society.  However, if 
such a society existed there does not seem to be any reason why KLUG 
could not hold some of its meetings in association with that society. 
Such an arrangement would provide a venue and some potentially useful 
cross-fertilisation between the two groups.

3)  We have the domain name registered and paid for for some years to 
come and Julia is currently hosting it for free.  This is a resource 
which is currently used in a minimal way, but this has the advantage 
that it is not a huge burden to keep updated, is stable, and it does act 
as a useful entry point for enquirers.

4)  The mailing list is reasonably active and for the most part well 
behaved.  At the moment is, in essence, the group - that is more or less 
where we meet.

5)  The IRC channel is, in my view, underused.  If people are not 
willing/able to travel to meetings the IRC channel would provide a 
useful conversation place in lieu of regular meetings.  Perhaps all that 
is needed is to schedule a regular meeting there and remind people about 
it on the website and mailing list.  This could more easily be an 
evening thing rather than hitting a weekend and I'd be happy to take 
that on for a trial period if people would find it helpful.

6)  Given the difficulty of organising physical meetings around the 
county and getting enough people to attend them I would suggest that 
perhaps such formal meetings could be reduced to quarterly.  If we had 
four venues which are used in turn, and a person who acts as the 
organiser for that venue that would mean that each person would have to 
organise only one meeting per year.  The role would involve putting out 
regular calls for talks etc and organising the agenda in advance of the 
meeting.

7) Pub meetings can be great fun and there is no reason why anyone can't 
organise one in their area.  If you want one at a pub near you just find 
a couple of others who want it too, fix a date [off list], and then if 
you like, advertise it on this list.  If no one else shows up at least 
three of you had a good evening.  It's really that simple.  You don't 
have to commit to making it monthly or any other frequency.