Re: KLUG Meeting Minutes 26-MAY-1998

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

>> Perhaps, changing the meeting night on a predictable but regular basis
>> would allow people to accomodate their work/school/life schedules
>> better.
>At the time, we took a vote for the best meeting time for everyone,
>and Tuesday evenings seemed to be acceptable by almost everyone
>who voted.

>How about it, do we need to look into changing the date again?
>Should we rotate it, as Mike suggested?  Ideas?
This is one of those debates that EVERY group seems to go through at times.
The advantage of a single fixed time is that everyone know when the meetings
are taking place, and this kind of stability tends to increase attendance.

The advantage of rotating or changing meeting times is that more people may
have a chance to attend.

IMO it depends on how important a meeting is to someone. If the meetings are 
announced for a fixed time, people can modify their schedules accordingly.
No group asks for a big commitment, but there has to be SOME commitment to
come to meetings.  If there isn't, what does the group mean?

Moving meeting times often, or rotating meetings put everyone in a position
of making this choice. What should our choice be? Whatever maximizes atten-
dance, without harming our basic goals.  The mailing list has more than
doubled in size since the last time we chose a meeting time, and for that 
reason alone it may be best to reconsider this.

>> On the subject of the mail server and related projects, the more people
>> who can become involved the more people can avail themselves of the
>> flavor of the bazaar, metaphorically speaking, learning experiences
>> would be welcome.
>Very good suggestion.  
Agreed, this is a very good suggestion. One of the characteristics of the
bazaar (a reference to the paper "The Catheral and the Bazaar" by Eric Raymond,
found at http://sagan.earthspace.net/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar. I urge 
eveyone to read this and related papers) is that it is lively with suggestions 
and initiative, and in the area od mailing lists and other group-related 
projects there has been no functioning bazaar.

>Remember, Bob Brown and myself _volunteered_ our time to do the 
>web site.  We weren't elected by anyone.  We would be very happy 
>to share this responsibility with anyone else who would like to 
>contribute their time on a regular basis.  Just let us know.
This has been true since the first HTML was written on behalf of the
group. The offer to share in web site development has been repeated on 
a number of ocasions, and we're repeating it here again. The Bazaar only 
functions when there is broad interest in sharing the workload, and we
have not had a lot of takers for this offer yet.

It would be good to see.

>There are other non-computer related tasks that people can
>volunteer their time for too.  Taking the minutes at meetings,
>scheduling people to make presentations, picking up the pizza,
>and probably a lot of other helpful things.  If we all pitch in, 
>we can spread out the workload so it's easy for everyone.
Many hands make light work. Breaking the responsibility for running
things into many small functions would be a welcome step forward for
everyone in the group.

I'm looking forward to more suggestions from others, and if I think
of something, I'll jump in with it, too.
                                                         Regards,
                                                         ---> RGB <---