[Scottish] The Future of the LUG

[Willie]

Well my cunning ploy to get you all talking certainly worked :-)

As usual, I am long on questions and short on answers
In reply to various posts..... 

I dont think we should rename the LUG, just accept that we are the defacto 
Glasgow LUG and offer as much as possible via the website and IRC to our 
members who are unfortunate enough to live outwith the dear green place. Just 
cos they cant come every month for a meeting or a pint, they arent any less 
important. 
We need to keep the SLUG name and all that goes with it (even the confusion)
and we should encourage and assist our "provincial" members to start up their 
own LUGs. I believe a succesful experiment has been carried out in that 
quaint little village in the east with the castle.
I think we need to restart the meetings in Strathclyde Uni (if that is cool 
wih Kenny). We need (IMHO) to take up Colin's offer to share his considerable 
knowledge with us. There may be a case for some talks aimed specifically at 
newbies.  Im concerned that we _may_ have put off some folks who turned up 
once or twice and were put off by the "uber-geekiness" of it all. I have no 
evidence for this, just a hunch we may have lost some folk that way.
OTOH we are a bunch of geeks so thats kinda hard to avoid. Possibly it may 
evolve into 2 talks per month, one for beginners and one more advanced. 

As the list admin (with assistance from Kyle) I/we need to investigate why 
some folk are getting funny reply-to addresses. The only ongoing prob I was 
aware of was the antiroot's DNS is screwed up regularly generates bounces. 
But I keep thinking he'll sort it out in a day or two so I dont do 
anything :-)

Possibly we do need a formal structure. I have resisted this in the past due 
to previous experiences of commitees in the voluntary sector that turned into 
ego-trips, disputes over handling of finances and slagging matches and I'd 
hate us to go the same way. But thats probably the kind of negative attitude 
that ensures nothing ever gets done. So maybe I am moving closer to the fence 
on this one.

Our website is a  greatly underused resource and the offer to write some java 
applets to help folk onto IRC should be grabbed with both hands.

It would be nice if we could get a meeting with the Green party to see what we 
can do to assist Robin Harper. I dont always agree with all of what the Green 
Party say but thats politics, working with those whom you can agree with on 
some points to advance common interests. But I'll probably drive to that 
meeting :-) ( preferably along the new bit of the M74)

Thats more than enough for now.....
-- 
Best Regards
Willie Fleming