WPLUGBoard/Meeting-20120103

Venue Info

Meeting to be held at The Coffee Tree Roasters at 5524 Walnut Street in Shadyside, Pittsburgh, PA 15232. 6:00pm, Tuesday, January 3, 2012.

Agenda

• Approve minutes of December 6 board meeting
• Discuss special committee for Software Freedom Day
• Discuss the newsletter
• List your item here

Minutes

The regular meeting of the Board of Directors of the Western Pennsylvania Linux Users Group was held on Tuesday, January 3, 2012, at 6:10 PM, at Coffee Tree Roasters in Shadyside. The regular presiding officer was in the Chair and the Secretary was present. The minutes of the December 6, 2011 meeting were approved as read.

The Chair reported that he sent emails about those who still wish to be part of the Investigating Committee. Three former members (Bill Moran, Mark Dalrymple, Dave Ostroske) in the committee agreed to resume their roles, but nobody else has replied as of yet.

The Vice-Chair is not present and has nothing to report.

Secretary reports that there are still currently 19 dues-paying members.

The Treasurer is not present, but hopefully by the next meeting will be able to report the total funds that WPLUG has available.

The Director-at-Large has nothing new to report, but would like to discuss at this meeting more about recruiting members with a beginner background.

The Internet Committee has nothing to report, but there are three former members that are resuming their roles.

The Program Committee has been fairly inactive throughout the holidays. There is currently no pursuit of new speakers, but discussion of that topic should occur during this meeting.

The Newsletter Committee has nothing new to report. Currently Vance Kochenderfer is the only member and is not actively seeking submissions.

The Public Relations Committee has nothing to report.

The special committee handing the wiring of the Wilkins School has nothing new to report. Basically the wiring of the school needs to be finished, so some people need to take care of that aspect.

There are no Special Orders in this meeting that need to be addressed.

With respect to Unfinished Business, there needs to be further discussion about the state of the newsletter. Currently it is inactive with Vance being the only active member on the Newsletter Committee. Vance is currently not pursuing submissions. Thoughts are to take content from other sources and put it in the newsletter. That said, perhaps members would like to submit content for the newsletter that is original? There should be a pursuit to ask people to be editors. A post shall be made to wplug-members to get some feedback. Editors will judge content on readability and accuracy of content.

With respect to some new thoughts, the group is considering having InstallFests in different locations than just Pittsburgh. Maybe some other counties should be considered? Also, for General User Meetings, maybe the group should consider having introductory Linux classes at the end of the general meetings.

There still needs to be a special committee formed for Software Freedom Day. Need to find members and non-members that want to take this on for WPLUG. The Kittaning computer group had their own activities for Software Freedom Day, so perhaps WPLUG should collaborate with them. Need at least two or three people to take this on for the group. The roles for these people will be to look for suitable venues, as well as try to collaborate with local groups and get ideas from other groups to maximize the potential for Software Freedom Day.

Another idea to consider are creating a syllabus for a class for new Linux users. This would be great to help new Linux users learn about using Linux. If the new users enjoy using Linux, they will spread the word about WPLUG and Linux in general.

A professional mentoring program could also be considered by WPLUG. It could be a substantial benefit to members if it is undertaken.

Yet another idea to consider is creating a bootable WPLUG USB stick. It could perhaps have a couple of distributions on it, and could be given away at InstallFests, as well as to speakers. It should be explored if CafePress or a similar company can do this for a reasonable cost.

WPLUG should also consider exploring having meetings in other counties, whether that is general meetings or InstallFests. Counties to consider include Beaver, Washington, Fayette, Greene, and Butler.

Another thing to explore is to have online membership payment for WPLUG. This could use something like Paypal, Dwolla, or some other payment service (hopefully open source). On that same vein, what about Point of Sales software for businesses. Could we sell local companies on some sort of open source software that does what commercial software can do? WPLUG should check with the chamber of commerce and the Small Business Administration. Terry will explore this further.

The final order of business is discussion about having a Linux class in the Goodwill in Lawrenceville. It is a great location, but Terry and Judi will see if Johnny Q. is interested in exploring this option.

The meeting adjourned at 7:08 PM.

Joseph Prostko
Secretary, Western Pennsylvania Linux Users Group

(Approved on February 7, 2012 - JP)