On Friday, July 15, 2011 02:57:10 PM Mike Rathburn wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: robert mckennon [mailto:[email protected]] > > Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 8:42 AM > > To: Jax-LUG > > Subject: Wednesday's meeting agenda > > > I would like to propose the following for Wednesday's meeting agenda: > Gene's presentation is getting hijacked somewhat by this, but still > hope to hear and learn something from it since it's in my field of > practice. > > I think the most important thing we should discuss and come to a > consensus about is how to avoid this scenario in the future where > all of our eggs are shoved into a single individual's basket. The > 'smart' action to take would be to incorporate the LUG and > formally elect officials for the entity.
I'd think twice about incorporating. That means a drain of about $300/year if you incorporate Florida nonprofit, it means somebody must do a complicated report to the state once a year. Year after year, the new person doing that report is farther separated from the original incorporation, and the report seems harder and harder. You must every year do taxes for the corporation, so you need to pay an accountant (that was part of my $300 estimate). You need to maintain a business checking account, and who knows, that might cost ten bucks a month. Somebody must be responsible for remembering all that stuff. As a practical matter, the minute you incorporate you need to start collecting dues. Now it's not all that difficult to collect, let's say, $35/year from willing members -- it's well worth it to belong to a LUG. But heaven help you if another LUG, that doesn't charge dues, opens nearby. I know of two Florida LUGs that incorporated -- Melbourne LUG (Tony Awtrey) and LEAP in Orlando. Looking at the MLUG website (mlinux.org) I get the feeling of a LUG still in there and pitching, but not the MLUG that ruled the world a decade ago. I've heard Tony Awtrey moved away, and it seems like most of the website's meeting links are a year old or older. Their history page ends in 2003. LEAP is still going strong, but meeting attendance is down to 10 or 15 people, and from what I heard they accidentally lost their incorporation a couple years ago, and from what I see on their mailing list they're having many of the same problems as JaxLug. In fact, I think all LUGs are having similar problems because Linux isn't the killer app that it was in 1999. All I'm saying is that in this environment, incorporation is one more hurdle, and I'm not sure it's a necessary one. GoLUG never incorporated, and we're still getting it done. My suggestion would be to gather a group of four or five people who REALLY, REALLY like JaxLUG, and let them do the evangelization and the leading. My experience is the rest will happen if you can produce enthusiasm. I agree with you that never again should one person be president, sparkplug, webmaster and email provider. No way that's sustainable. Instead, if a small group generates enthusiasm, volunteers will fall in line to host email, do the website and keep it up to date, and present at meetings. At GoLUG we have a couple guys who magically put the next meeting on the website as soon as the next meeting is decided, and one of our members volunteered to host our mailing list on his server. Another guy volunteered to let us use his office for meetings if we lose our Full Sail meeting place. A lot of you know what I'm about to say, but perhaps some of you have only been JaxLUG for three or four years and don't. JaxLUG has a spectacular history with a grade A pedigree. In the past you guys have stepped up and done some incredible things. You were formed last century by a teen ager who liked Linux more than school, dropped out, and started holding the first JAXLug meetings in his friend's apartment. I wish GoLUG had a history like that -- we were born in a dam flame war :-(. SteveT Steve Litt Author: The Key to Everyday Excellence http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/key_excellence.htm Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt --------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive http://marc.info/?l=jaxlug-list&r=1&w=2 RSS Feed http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml Unsubscribe [email protected]
