Re: KLUG, etc.

["Robert G. Brown" <bob@xxxxxxx>]

Matt (Eagle@mail.tds.net) has wisely ordered bytes to say:

>One of the problems that we have been having at meetings, is that on most 
>occasions the entire group is not present...
Indeed! All groups that vote have as a requirement that a minimum number of
members be present to hold votes. Since we in essence have no rules except
common consent, making group decisions is nearly impossible. This idea will
allow us to start doing things as a group.

>...IMHO I believe that this is 
>about the only way that we will be able to get anything done.
Agreed.

>The other suggestion I have, is that we need to keep our meetings in a bit 
>more order that we usually do.
This implies that someone has to be the "heavy", and cut off discussion in
favor of a group speaker. Groups have officers for this purpose.

This person is commonly called the chairman, or the facilitator.

The last couple of meetings, I tried to move things along, but in keeping
with the observations I've made in my very recently sent message, I don't
want to be controlling or bossy.

A fine idea. Let's pick some facilitators.

>It would also be nice to make up some sort of agenda to keep the 
>meetings going. I don't think that this will be very difficult, since we 
>already have a list of topics to be discussed, and some suggested people to 
>discuss them.  
For topics, we only have technical things to talk about. I suggest that we
cover one technical topic per meeting, if possible, and cover something about
how we want KLUG itself to grow.

Composing an agenda is easy, and usually the task of the secretary (ahem!).
If you like, I can make up a simple one, and if you need a printer, just
send it here... we can discuss this off-line.

>As far as the Facilitator of the meeting goes, perhaps we could 
>pick someone at random at the beginning of each meeting just to keep 
>everything fair.
We could, but then, how would we pick? By election at every meeting?>

>OK I'm done now...
Well, on one side, anyway... can we flip you over? :)

>Questions?
Not right now...

>Comments?
I liked Chris Gidmans comments on this message....

>Points of Rebuttal?
Instead of picking facilitators at random, running meetings smoothly is
the function of officers. If we elect some once, they'll know to facilitate,
and people will expect that of them. No need to do messy facilitator picking
at each meeting...

Reactions and new thoughts always welcome...
                                                  Regards,
                                                      ---> RGB <---