[H-ANNOUNCE] AGM 2009 Minutes

Clinton Roy secretary at humbug.org.au
Wed Sep 9 06:11:35 EDT 2009


Hey folks,

The following is a rendering of http://humbug.org.au/AGM2009 posted
here for posterity.
It was compiled by the former executive.

HUMBUG AGM 2009

Details

  * Date: 5/9/2009

    Time: 6pm

    Place: UQ St Lucia Campus, Prentice Building (42) room 212.

    Attendees: Attendee list page.

    Minutes taken by who and how:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Agenda Items

The current agenda is as follows:

Contents

 1. HUMBUG AGM 2009
     1. Details
     2. Agenda Items
     3. Meeting Opened
     4. Confirmation of the 2008 AGM minutes
     5. Reports
         1. Exec Reports
             1. President's Report
             2. Vice Presidents Report
             3. Secretary's Report
             4. Treasurer's Report
             5. Librarian's Report
             6. Accept Executive Reports
         2. Non Exec Reports
             1. Systems Report
             2. Talks Liaison Report
             3. Event Coordinator Report
     6. Business to be discussed before the elections
     7. Nominations and Voting
         1. President
         2. Vice President
         3. Secretary
         4. Treasurer
         5. Librarian
     8. General Business
         1. Discussion On Russell Stuart's Presidential Nomination Platform
         2. Exec Meeting Rules
         3. Other Business
     9. Meeting Closed

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meeting Opened

Meeting opened at 18:04

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Confirmation of the 2008 AGM minutes

  * Motion: Accept the minutes of the 2008 AGM as true and correct

    Proposed: Scott Wilson

    Seconded: David Formosa

    Result: Passed unopposed

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reports

The aim of these reports is to present what has happened during the year in
relation to the club.

Exec Reports

  * Position       Name
    President      James Iseppi
    Vice-President Mark Ellem
    Treasurer      Elspeth Thorne
    Secretary      Scott Wilson
    Librarian      Matthew Franklin

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

President's Report

These are some of the activities the club has been involved in during the past
year. Also listed are some of the issues that have arisen, and how they've been
dealt with.

LCA Bid

Our LCA 2010 Bid was unsuccessful as most of the people here know. This was
mainly because of the incredibly good bid submitted by Wellington. I'd like to
thank Russell Stuart for his effort during the bidding process.

This has not deterred us though, and we are pushing ahead with our next bid for
LCA2011. This is being led by Shaun Nykvist and a team including myself,
Russell Stuart, Mark Ellem, Matthew Franklin, Clinton Roy, Scott Wilson, Daniel
Devine, Marco Ostini and Stephen Thomas.

Setup/Packup schedule

Based on an expression of interest of the interested people at the last AGM I
created a pack up and set up roster for those who volunteered. We had 7
volunteers which meant that each person needed to pack up/set up approximately
4 times during the year. This system worked well and I think that Russell's
idea of keeping similar information on the wiki is a logical extension to the
roster that is already maintained.

Room Bookings

When it came time to renew our room room bookings with UQ we ran into some
issues. ITS were quite happy to forward our request to room bookings as they
have done in the past, but the room bookings section within UQ were not aware
of our previous arrangement. This caused significant delays in organising our
room bookings for 2009. After many conversations between ITS, myself and UQ
room bookings we eventually came to the understanding that HUMBUG does have a
relationship with UQ through ITS and that this arrangement could be used to
book rooms. We have now taken to dealing directly with UQ's room bookings area
to hopefully minimise the liklihood of a similar situation arising. Also our
practice of booking rooms for the entire year can no longer occur as UQ can
only book rooms for the current and next teaching periods (ie. about six months
into the future).

Caliburn breach

On the 14 January 2009 an initial suspicious process was discovered on HUMBUG's
server caliburn by Clinton Roy. Clinton killed the process performed a security
update and could not find any further problems with the machine. He reported
this information to the exec and some follow up emails discussed the issues of
the box being compromised. The general consensus was that we would migrate away
from caliburn as soon as possible to another server excalibur which was kindly
provided by Robert Brockway (although i'm sure he wasn't expecting to be
providing it for as long as he currently has been).

Plans were slowly progressing to move services from caliburn to this new server
when caliburn was again compromised sometime around the 27 April 2009. We do
not have many details about the nature of the compromise other than there being
a root kit present on the box. As soon as the rootkit was noticed I consulted
with others on the exec and we decided that we needed to shutdown caliburn
immediately to protect other internet users from any attacks that may now
originate from HUMBUG's server.

Plans were pushed forward to migrate HUMBUG services to excalibur, and Stephen
Thomas took the lead, with help from several other HUMBUG members. As part of
the recovery a new website was created using a MoinMoin wiki and several of the
services were changed over to different software (e.g. email now using postfix
instead of exim). We also implemented some changes to the main contact points
for HUMBUG (exec at humbug.org.au and sysadmin at humbug.org.au) by turning them into
mailing lists rather than aliases they used to be. This has provided HUMBUG
with message archiving for all communications into HUMBUG via these addresses.
Also the exec has been permanently subscribed to the both lists using their
aliases (e.g. president at humbug.org.au) so that they are aware of all the issues
that are occurring regarding the ongoing administration of HUMBUG's server.

Thanks to Robert Brockway, Stephen Thomas, and all of the other people who
helped with restoring HUMBUG services:

At this point I'd like to thank Robert Brockway for providing us with excalibur
to replace caliburn. I would like to suggest that we re-imburse him for the
costs he has incurred in hosting the server and thank him for all the effort he
has made to do the initial setup work for excalibur.

I would also like to thank Stephen Thomas for taking on the role as lead
sysadmin during this restoration. It has been extremely beneficial to have one
person leading the effort to restore the services provided by the old server
caliburn.

I'd also like to thank all of the people who helped in any way with excalibur.
Your effort was much appreciated.

Wiki

As part of the move to excalibur it was necessary to create a new website as
the existing website could only be recovered from a compromised source, and
without significant work we could not restore this version. The executive
decided to move forward with plans for a HUMBUG wiki to replace the current
website. This would provide a collaborative space for the Members and the Exec
to store information about the club. Most of the existing content from the old
website was imported into the wiki to provide a starting point. From there much
new content has been added by many people. Additionally, thanks to the work of
Russell Stuart the LCA Bid wiki that he has been maintaining has now been
integrated into the main HUMBUG wiki.

Documentation about the Club

One of the main things that is now included in the HUMBUG wiki is documentation
about how the club operates and the processes involved in the day to day
running of the club. This has mainly been thanks to the hard work of Matthew
Franklin, and the many people who have followed up his work with updates and
corrections. I hope to see the information in this area improve over time as
things change within the club. I'd like to thank all the people who have helped
out with this documentation on the wiki, and I hope that the next executive
finds it useful.

Membership DB

Now it is time for the inevitable membership DB report. The membership database
has not progressed as far as I would have liked this year. This has mainly been
because of other issues within the club, such as the caliburn compromise and
the subsequent commissioning of excalibur. Stephen Thomas, Daniel Devine and
Matthew Franklin are working on the system and I hope they will continue and
complete this work over the coming year.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vice Presidents Report

Background

This year has been an interesting year for HUMBUG as a number of events have
happened. Some were planned, others were unplanned. Despite all this, all these
events have gone smoothly and I am pleased to say HUMBUG is still going strong
as a user group.

Server breach and new server/services

As mentioned in out presidents report, although we had some breaches of
caliburn through a rootkit which caused downtime, thanks to Stephen Thomas and
Russell Stuart we were able to get a Xen virtual machine provided by Robert
Brockway up and running with a new website/wiki.

As there were plans to upgrade the website before the breach happened, this
line of events turned out to have fortunate consequences. I, as vice president,
have been involved in making sure all planning and implementation of our new
server has gone smoothly through such activities as get-togethers between
executive and sys-admins.

Assisting Treasurer with fiscal duties

Elspeth Thorne, due to personal and health reasons, has not been able to
perform her full duties this year. Elspeth has been from the beginning been
fully committed to her role, so this in no way implies she has not wanted to
perform her duties. Due to these reasons, I have been helping her by keeping
the cashbox in order, keeping an eye on HUMBUG's account and doing the banking
for HUMBUG.

Running of HUMBUG in presidents absence

As our president has been working in Canberra, I have been ensuring the
operation of HUMBUG has been going smoothly in his absence. This involved
making sure the packing up roster has been adhered to and keeping general
order.

Acquisition of A/V equipment for HUMBUG

With the help of our librarian, HUMBUG has bought a camera for use at meeting
and official events for recording of talks. The reasoning is to allow members
who could not attend the meetings when the talks were being held and
opportunity to catch up on what they missed.

A number of talks have been recorded and distributed with the new camera and I
am pleased to say it has been quite successful. If things continue to go well,
we hope to purchase additional equipment such as microphones and PA amplifiers.

Summary

Although some things have not gone to plan, in summary, all has all turned out
well for HUMBUG. I hope I am passing on a vibrant organisation to my successor.
I also hope HUMBUG continues to support the Brisbane Unix user community well
in to the future.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Secretary's Report

Nothing much to report. Correspondence to secretary at humbug.org.au regarding
meeting dates, times, and such from prospective members was answered with a
variant of "Sure thing! the meeting is on (date here) from (start time) to (end
time) at (meeting venue) - if you'd like to attend, I'll be there from 3pm
onwards! My mobile number is 0448 109 267." This was not entirely successful as
a recruiting technique. From the many, many emails received, only 1 new
financial member was gained. Nevertheless, it wasn't a wasted exercise.

Rostering

Rostering for setup/packup was trailed, and was generally successful.
Personally, I am a huge supporter of this - it spreads the load around and
ensures that the system is by and large fair and balanced.

And finally...

I would like to take this opportunity to encourage any members who had
considered running for a exec role to put their hand up and try. Executive
roles aren't particularly onerous, and are a great way to contribute new and
fresh ideas for the club. If you are a current financial member, please
consider a exec role - the group will benefit from your contribution.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Treasurer's Report

The transaction history for the club this year is as follows:

Date    Credit/     Description         Balance   Notes
        Debit
01/09/  $70.00      DEPOSIT             $6,537.38
09
24/07/  $50.00      CASH DEPOSIT 4114   $6,467.38
09
06/07/  -$299.00    260113 4114         $6,417.38 Cheque - Purchase of video
09                                                camera
29/06/  -$52.79     260112 4114         $6,716.38 Cheque
09
01/06/  $0.65       CREDIT INTEREST     $6,769.17
09
01/06/  $140.00     CASH DEPOSIT 4114   $6,768.52 Membership fees
09
27/03/  $85.50      CASH DEPOSIT 4114   $6,628.52
09
20/03/  -$200.00    CASHED CHEQUE       $6,543.02
09                  900064
18/03/  -$185.00    900065              $6,743.02 Cheque
09
09/03/  $300.00     CASH DEPOSIT 4178   $6,928.02 Membership fees
09
01/12/  $14.73      CREDIT INTEREST     $6,628.02
08
13/10/  -$2.50      TRANSACTION LIST    $6,613.29
08                  7901
25/09/  $290.00     CASH DEPOSIT 4178   $6,615.79 Membership fees
08
                    Opening balance:    $6,325.79
                    Total Debits:       -$739.29
                    Total Credits:      $950.88

In summary, HUMBUG made a profit of $211.59. Most expenses were related to
Caliburn and the purchase of the video camera. I believe that the current level
of paid membership is sufficient to keep the club running, however any major
equipment purchase, or a decision to use a non-sponsored hosting provider for
humbug services would change this status.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Librarian's Report

Librarian: Matthew Franklin.

Getting Better Access

Over the last year I have worked hard to make sure that as much of the Library
was available to members as possible. I have under my fellow Exec members
direction looked into using an online library to provide easy to use and access
books. Which proved to be far beyond the reach of HUMBUG's budget. I have
worked towards creating a library database and have on most HUMBUG meetings
brought a small collection of the library books for members to borrow.

Numbers and Figures

The HUMBUG library has 47 books, 86 magazines and also a small collection of
cd's. Total value for books and magazines is $2633.12. As the librarian it is
my duty to also manage the HUMBUG equipment. This includes the routers that we
use as well as cables, power adapters etc. The total value of the equipment
that we have is $3974.67. This includes the library books and magazines as
well. The figures relate to replacement costs not the value. The total value
would need to be calculated to include depreciation. Note: I have made best
guess estimates where I have no solid figures to work from. With the books I
have just used the RRP prices and with other stuff I have searched on the net
for prices of similar equipment. See the HUMBUG wiki for further details which
include a list of all the books and magazines.

Other Roles

Not only have I maintained the library I have also have worked hard to make
HUMBUG work as a whole.

Membership Drive

Early this year I helped out Russell Stuart do a membership drive where we
prepared a whole pile of Open CD's to be handed out. Put posters up at QUT
Garden's Point campus. I know that both Russell, Mark and myself have worked
hard to introduce new memebers. To encourage those members to participate in
HUMBUG.

Dealing with Server Issues

I have tried to help where possible to deal with the issues that we have had
with the server. Earlier on this year James Iseppi found that our server
Caliburn was compromised.

Together with Mark Ellem we disconnected the server from UQ's server room.
After which with the help of Stephen Thomas, Q, Daniel Devine, Russell Stuart,
Robert Brockway and a few others we managed to bring the HUMBUG's email and
email list services online as well as replace the old HUMBUG website with a
moinmoin wiki.

Thanks must go to everyone that helped. It wasn't easy and we still have a lot
to do but I think the end result so far has been excellent. By having a wiki
setup as our website this means that everyone can easily add information to the
website. Post talk details and slides etc all without needing to have
administrator access and without the worry that they might cause irreparable
damage.

The Website

I have made sure that where possible that the information on our website is
updated and correct. I have added more pages than I care to remember. My main
interest is to pass as much information to HUMBUG members and future Exec
members as possible. This is so that they can simply look on the website to
find the information required to get the job done.

That's about it.

Matthew Franklin (HUMBUG Librarian)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Accept Executive Reports

  * Motion: Accept the executive reports as on the wiki

    Proposed: Ewan Edwards

    Seconded: David Formosa

    Result: Passed unopposed

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Non Exec Reports

Position          Name
System Admin      Stephen Thomas
Event Coordinator Matthew Franklin
Talks Liaison     Matthew Franklin

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Systems Report

Caliburn

  Before my major involvement with the HUMBUG systems, our server at
the time had been compromised.  This increased the urgency of
migrating to a new system.

  Matthew Franlkin and Mark Ellem removed caliburn from the rack at UQ
and brought the machine to the following HUMBUG meeting, where we were
able to retrieve a more recent snapshot of the data to use for the
move to our new server.

Excalibur

    I should start by thanking Robert Brockway for providing the VM in
the first place - I don't know what the long-term plans for the HUMBUG
server is, but getting everything running as a virtual machine gives
us a lot of flexibility to move our services around if needed.

    I've been given a lot of help and ideas from Mark Ellem, Matthew
Franklin, Q and Daniel Devine on what was needed, and how to set up
services on excalibur.

    Russel Stuart has been our main helper for any scritps or
development work that's been needed.

  * DNS
      + HUMBUG and HUMBUG-hosted zones were migrated from Caliburn to
        Excalibur, all of the records pointing to caliburn were moved to where
        they were appropriate.
  * Mail
      + Migrated the virtual mail setup from exim on caliburn to postfix on
        excalibur.
  * Mailing Lists
      + Mailman lists were migrated to exalibur and the archives of previous
        posts were imported. 'sysadmin' and 'exec' aliases were changed to
        lists for ease of management and tracking.
  * Web
      + Wiki
          o Russell Stuart helped with the initial installation of the wiki and
            got his EmailActivation plugin working with the newer version of
            moinmon.
          o Matthew Franklin must be thanked for the sheer number of pages he's
            added to the wiki.
      + planet
          o The old source install of the planetplanet blog aggregator was
            replaced with the debian package and the config was updated to
            match. (Some sources that we look for may no longer exist or be out
            of date though, these will have to be checked manually and either
            updated or removed.)

Other services are planned and/or in progress (see below)

Amazon s3

  * Backups are running thanks to Russel's scripts.

Tarball and chroot script

  * A snapshot tarball of excalibur's filesystem (minus sensitive data) and a
    script to let you interact with it as a chroot environment are both
    available to members interested in helping with HUMBUG systems or just
    curious as to how they are set up. This makes change requests and
    discussions easier too, as anyone can read how services are configured, and
    can submit patches against the real files. The chroot script is again
    thanks to Russell Stuart.

What still needs to be done

  * Proper distributed revision control for humbug configs and source, this
    will be done with mercurial.
  * Proper Packaging of HUMBUG-developed scripts/programs, excalibur has it's
    own apt-repository, and I will be building .debs of our programs.
  * Moving to use trac as a ticketing system to keep what we do, and further
    help collaboration.
  * Documenting procedures for all of the above so that others know what's
    going on :-)

Stephen Thomas
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Talks Liaison Report

Talks Liaison: Matthew Franklin

Since taking over the role earlier this year I have attempted to encourage
people to do talks and or add what they know to the wiki. My intention was to
improve the knowledge base of the club. In past years I have attended some very
good talks and I want there to more talks presented.

However I believe that talks are only one part of what should be done. We
should use tutorials as a way of informing HUMBUG members to both new
technology as well as introducing people to basic information. I also believe
that we should use our web to provide information that people can follow up on
and expand.

Filming The Talks

One of the main things I have done this year is to implement the filming of
talks. The hope here is that it encourages more people to talk. Provides
members that miss the talk the ability to view it and to show that we are an
active club.

To that end I pursued purchasing a video camera so that we may film talks, edit
and then post them to the web. So far I have only managed to film and post two
talks. While these were okay I know that in the future either myself or the
next person can do a lot better. I would say that the filming of talks is still
very much in the developmental stage.

The Wiki

What can I say about the wiki. It has proved to be a very valuable tool. Not
only can we use our new wiki to advertise and inform people of HUMBUG and the
meetings. We can also use it to document what happens at the club. While this
was always possible it was never so easily done. To this end the wiki has
provided us with an excellent tool for the posting of talks. Both of attaching
slides as well as making the wiki the slide show, the presentation platform.

The future

In the future I believe I hope the talks become a more regular feature at
HUMBUG. That people who are to shy to stand up and do a talk provide either new
material to do future talks or expand on old talks. That film of talks becomes
more regular and far better quality. That both old hands and new hands learn
something they don't know from these talks.

Matthew Franklin.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Event Coordinator Report

Event Coordinator: Matthew Franklin

I have been in charge of two main events over the AGM year. They have been the
Christmas party and the Install fest.

Christmas Party

The Christmas party have been for quite some time a yearly event. Last year's
Christmas party was no different. We went to Montezuma's Mexican Restaurants.
There were 16 people in attendance.

I feel that it went okay and as my first main task it was something simple to
setup. However I feel that Montezuma's is not the best choice. I would look
into alternatives and try those out. The choice of Mexican is okay but the
restaurant was far to small to handle the 16 guests that we had and was
uncomfortable.

Install Fest

We held the install fest on March 21st. The only real problem that we had with
it was a lack of advertising. Apart from that it went well. We had pizza and
soft drinks. Even though we did not attract new members it was good to see old
members get together and enjoy themselves.

In the future I would not hold an install fest but rather hold a welcoming
party. Rather than say we will install Unix if you come. Have a party where we
set aside time to introduce new people to HUMBUG. I think next year with better
advertising and more planning this should work far better than this years
install fest.

The Membership Drive

This year I helped out Russell Stuart with a membership drive. We, as a group,
set about putting up notices at all the major Universities. Stuffing pamphlets
into Open Source CD cases. I think this kinda worked. Not as well as we hoped
but I think we did get a few new members out of this. Also it had the affect of
putting back some of the old enthusiasm that I think has been missing from the
club for some time now. It was a good experience and one that I feel we should
repeat.

Looking to the Future

I believe the role of the Event Coordinator should be expanded to include
either the planning the membership drive or being a key member. We should also
back it up with the welcoming party that I mentioned earlier. If possible lets
look at maybe getting stands at the Open days at the Universities. Also see if
we can advertise the event more in the TAFEs and local libraries.

Matthew Franklin.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Business to be discussed before the elections

It has been requested by Matthew Franklin (based on a discussion with Russell
Stuart) that discussions regarding his presidential platform be discussed prior
to the elections.

  * Motion: That item's 1 and 2 from general business be discussed before the
    elections as they could directly affect the ability of people to run for
    positions on the Executive.

    Proposed: James Iseppi

    Seconded: Matthew Franklin

    Result: Failed, 13 against, 8 for

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nominations and Voting

President

  * Nominee       Proposer      Seconder    Accepted Y/ Withdrew Y/ Vote Count
                                            N           N
    Russell       Russell       Greg Black  Yes         -           22
    Stuart        Stuart
    Clinton Roy   Clinton Roy   Scott       Yes         -           1
                                Wilson

Vice President

  * Nominee        Proposer      Seconder      Accepted Y/ Withdrew Y/ Vote
                                               N           N           Count
    Matthew        James Iseppi  Mark Ellem    Yes         -           16
    Franklin
    Arjen Lentz    Arjen Lentz   Elspeth       Yes         Yes         -
                                 Thorne
    Greg Black     Stephen       Arjen Lentz   Yes         -           12
                   Thorne

Secretary

  * Nominee        Proposer       Seconder      Accepted Y Withdrew Y Vote
                                                /N         /N         Count
    Matthew        Matthew        Tony          Yes        Yes        -
    Franklin       Franklin       Bilbrough
    Clinton Roy    Clinton Roy    Arjen Lentz   Yes        -          16
    Scott Wilson   Scott Wilson   Matthew       Yes        -          10
                                  Sellers

Treasurer

  * Nominee       Proposer      Seconder       Accepted Y/ Withdrew Y/ Vote
                                               N           N           Count
    Mark Ellem    Mark Ellem    Matthew        Yes         -           14
                                Franklin
    Elspeth       Elspeth       Arjen Lentz    Yes         -           1
    Thorne        Thorne
    Elice Wu      Elice Wu      Greg Black     Yes         -           11

Librarian

  * Nominee      Proposer    Seconder    Accepted Y/ Withdrew Y/ Vote Count
                                         N           N
    Stephen      James       David       Yes         -           Elected
    Thomas       Iseppi      Formosa                             Unopposed

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

General Business

Discussion On Russell Stuart's Presidential Nomination Platform

I, Matthew Franklin, would like to discuss a few items from Russell Stuart's
Presidential Nomination platform

 1. Remove all private email lists: I would like to find out what members think
    of this. What are the pros and cons of having private lists for exec and
    sysadmin. I want to hear from both sides, those that are on these lists,
    and those that are not.

    Motion: that we remove all private email lists and make them public.

    Proposed: Stephen Thorne

    Seconded: Greg Black

    Result: Failed, 11 against, 9 for
 2. Change Exec Roles: In Russell's Nomination he stated that he would prefer
    that the following changes occur.
      + Position  Current Role         New Role        Notes
        President Make sure people are No change
                  doing their jobs
        Vice      Bludger              Meeting         They make sure the
        President                      scheduling      meeting is run smoothly.
        Secretary Correspondence       No change
        Treasurer Handling the money   Managing club   Takes over some
                                       assets          Librarian Duties
        Librarian Managing club assets Ensure computer Sys Manager Role
                                       systems work

      + Does anyone agree with some or all of those changes. If you agree then
        do you also feel strongly enough to change the constitution to reflect
        those role changes. If so then we need to settle on what that
        constitution change should be.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Exec Meeting Rules

I propose a series of rules for Exec meetings be setup. This could follow what
has been laid out in this page Proposed Rules. On this page is included rules
for reports and minutes. Rules for agenda items.

  * Motion: To accept the rules contained within the Proposed Rules.

    Proposer: Matthew Franklin

    Result: Failed, as not seconded

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other Business

No other business

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meeting Closed

Meeting closed at 18:52

-- 
Clinton Roy
CSIRO - Robotics Platform Engineer
Autonomous Systems Lab

humbug.org.au  - Brisbane Unix Group
azure.humbug.org.au/~croy/blog - Blog
flickr.com/photos/croy/ - Photos



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