[H-GEN] Support to change Humbug's constitution.

[Frank Brand]

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Raymond Smith wrote:

> Hi Frank,

Brisbug...some years ago...was very very successful. They would get in
excess of 200 ppl to the Bardon Centre on a Sunday and also did some
great educational work in there SIG groups in the seminar rooms...eg
C/C++ programming courses etc. I think after the President changed and
they went to Kelvin Grove they sort of lost the plot a bit. Again that's
my perspective maybe they just didn't cater for me and they catered for
what others wanted... as any good organisation should do.

Incidentally, they did sell their educational series.. I think the C/C++
programming course might have been $90 but I am stretching a tired old
brain on that.

I think that the great success that they had was due to the dedication
of a few people who were strong drivers of the organisation.
Unfortunately, those people usually get burnt out and a vacuum develops
(was gonna say hiatus but I don't know if the spelling is correct)

Funnily enuff Brisbug was one organisation I was thinking of. They would
have the normal "club meeting" before the talk session. Maybe the reason
that they ran out of puff was that there were not sufficient good
presentations to keep the momentum going. Lack of parking at Kelvin
Grove certainly did not help either.

I actually did speak to some Brisbug people about a year ago and they
certainly had an interest in Linux at that time.

> On the other hand, we had a number of members from the BrisBUG PC User
> Group compliment us on this very style of meeting. However, I agree with
> you that HUMBUG needs to know what its members want/expect from it.

Yep the meetings are fine if thats what members want. Unfortunately it
is not that suitable for me....thats my problem not Humbug's if the
members are generally happy.


> > I see, in other parts of Australia and overseas, user group meetings
> > that are well organised and have good technical sessions and speakers.


Well, some of the user groups in Sydney and Melbourne and Adelaide seem
to be reasonable from what I hear but I would not claim great first hand
knowledge (see Brisbug comments above - in my view Brisbug of say about
the early 1990's was the best user group I have seen ( the Bardon
Development Centre was standing room only) but they were supported
strongly by Intel introducing and ramping up the Pentium and also
Microsoft heavily promoting Windows developments 95 and the yet to be
introduced NT and other companies, as well, providing great
presentations).


> > There are many Humbug talks I have been interested in attending but if
> > they don't start till some time after they should it is very difficult.
> 
> We can do better here. Talks are actually scheduled for 6-7pm but this may
> not have been adequately advertised.


Well, for the normal family guy maybe 6-7pm on a Saturday is not a great
time. But again, if it suits the membership, fine.

 
> > I believe that there is a crying need for this type of well constructed
> > Linux Education series...perhaps it could even be sold....lots of other
> > organisations sell these kind of services but this is a separate matter.
> 
> Yes. Indeed the new members who have contacted me have all asked for this
> sort of thing. The executive has heard but has been busy with other
> things. What would be great is if people interested in *giving* Linux
> Education talks could contact us.


I think that this is often harder to do than to talk about....good
quality presenters and presentations are not that easy to come by and I
do not underestimate the difficulty in the logistics here.


> While I would like to make AGMs more attractive to members and do welcome
> your suggestions I take great exception to your assertion that there is
> any attempt whatsoever to disenfranchise people or circumvent any law.


Dont get so excited Raymond *wink*. I did not mean to imply any attempt
at doing so. I was referring an earlier post that talked about ensuring
that members were not precluded from voting and another drawing
attention to the legalties of the situation. I apologise if my language
extended a mere throw away line into a special issue.

-- 
Frank Brand
E-mail:- fbrand at uq.net.au
Home Page:-http://www.uq.net.au/~zzfbrand

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