> I say we make the next poll question read thus: Who is your favorite > UUG-er from the "glory days"? Here are my selections (in no particular > order):
I don't really like the idea of a poll, but here are some other members
of the UUG who have stood out in my mind (I hope I don't forget any).
The reason I mention them is because of the hard work they put in over
the years. I believe that every single person in Brent's list, and my
list, helped me at some time (and many others).
- Michael Torrie (I owe him $15,000 in tech support fees)
- Dave Smith (Man, he can code)
- Byron Clark (What doesn't he know?)
- Michael Golden (Webmaster elite - We still go out to dinner
when I travel to Atlanta)
- The Fugal Brothers (Hans, VIM master)
- Lil' Bro (Andrew McNabb; you're the one who got me hooked on Linux)
- Scott Robertson (If it wasn't for his help, I'd still be at BYU
retaking physics!)
- Clint Jones
- Richard Esplin
- Phillip Hellewell
- Gabe and Jordan Gunderson
- Michael Brailsford
- Danelle Brown
- Soren Harward
- Andrew Jorgensen
- Nathan Rackliffe
> - Stuart Jansen
> - Evan McNabb
> - Michael Halcrow
> - Grant Robinson
> - Jon Jensen (both of 'em)
> - Ross Werner
> - Glen Wagley (the dude's hilarious)
> - Art Moore
> - Jason Holt
>
> I hope I haven't forgotten anyone. I hope the UUG lives on forever. The
> input and feedback from people like these have helped form who I am and
> helped me become more dangerous (and political) than I ever thought
> possible. Thanks everybody.
>
> If we're worried about the current state of the union, why don't we
> solicit input from the old-timers? They may have suggestions for helping
> us relive the glory days. Art? Stuart? Evan? Any thoughts?
Like every organization I've ever been in, the UUG has had its ups and
downs. That's normal and expected. We do need to think though about why
people even care about the UUG. Students have a lot of things to take up
their time: school, church, work, friends, and something that most
UUGers don't need to worry about, dating (just kidding ;-)).
The reason I got involved in the UUG was two fold: I wanted to learn
more about Linux and OSS, and I wanted to make friends that had the same
interests. The UUG helped in both of these ways. I to this day keep in
contact with many of my fellow UUGers; heck, I work with Stuart Jansen.
> Here are my thoughts:
> - review the content of the UUG meetings
> - encourage technical and innovative conversations on the list (it's
> been a while since it was substantially more than chit-chat)
> - make specific requests to individuals when volunteers are in short
> supply (I know I'm setting myself up with that one)
> - pizza & sodas; "the mooch factor's pretty high in this crowd" :-)
-----
I like your ideas Brent. Let me add to them if I may.
Let's take a look at why people should care about certain aspects of the
UUG:
* Mailing lists:
I believe the mailing lists are one of most important aspects of the
club. They're the main reason it keeps the club intact. Frankly, the
list has been pretty dead recently. There's not a lot of traffic. It
seems like people aren't asking questions (maybe they're nervous, don't
know think their questions will be answered quickly and well, etc), and
not a lot of people are responding to the posts, myself included.
Let's try to have a more active mailing list where people FEEL LIKE ITS
WORTH THEIR TIME. They learn and they make friends.
* Meetings:
I personally love Linux User Group meetings. Now that I live in
Bountiful and am on the road for work several weeks out of the month,
it's very hard for me to make it down. As a student though, I tried to
make ever single meeting. Why did I go to meetings, even when topics
weren't extremely interesting to me?
I wanted to learn and make friends. Meetings need to be topics that
people are so interested in, they look forward to them. Here's a great
example. The PLUG had a MythTV meeting by Brandon Beattie (MythTV
developer) about two years ago. Back then MythTV was still a new
project. Andrew and I went to the meeting; we left so excited that
Andrew bought a TV tuner card THAT NIGHT! Since then Andrew has become a
MythTV junkie. Now that's a meeting.
Meetings need to be on topics that can interest both advanced and newbie
users, but in the end, the hard-core Linux/Unix users are going to keep
the club going.
Meetings should be planned weeks in advanced, and should be well
advertised on mailing lists (UUG, PLUG, etc), and should have good
explanations on the website. An ad-hoc meeting is asking for trouble.
What is on the schedule for this semester? Nothing! (yet)
We used to get together at the beginning of the semester and try to plan
out our activities for the rest of the semester.
* Other Activities (e.g. Installfests, Booths, etc):
I always looked forward to installfests. They're a lot of work,
especially to plan, but in the end I felt like they were worth it. I
went because I wanted to spread Linux usage, I wanted to learn from the
problems we encountered, and I wanted to BE WITH FRIENDS.
I know a lot of people who are burnt out from installfests. They're sick
of them. Every time it's the same thing. What can you do to convince
people to help? Make it fun for them and worth their time, or just stop
doing them. Same with the booth. Personally, I think being at the booth
sucked, especially at first. It felt like I was back on my mission, but
after I was there for a bit, it became fun.
I think if the mailing list and meetings are strong, these other
activities will be successes.
-----
One last thing. The UUG is a university student organization. Over the
years we have relied too much on those who have graduated before us. We
hope they will be active on the mailing lists, show up and meetings, and
help at installfests. The club needs to be 100% sustainable with its
current student members, which is tough because of such a high turnover.
Make sure to bring as many new users to the club as possible: they want
to learn and make friends.
I wish the UUG the best of luck, and hope to be more involved in it.
Like I mention, I travel a lot for work, so it's hard to attend events
and have time for mailing lists. I'll try to do my part, and hope others
will be reinvigorated also. Long live the penguin!
-Evan
P.S. Thanks Jake for starting this discussion.
/********************************************************************\
Evan McNabb: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Instructor, Guru Labs
http://evan.mcnabbs.org
GnuPG Fingerprint: 53B5 EDCA 5543 A27A E0E1 2B2F 6776 8F9C 6A35 6EA5
\********************************************************************/
pgpQjPtae80M3.pgp
Description: PGP signature
-------------------- BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ The opinions expressed in this message are the responsibility of their author. They are not endorsed by BYU, the BYU CS Department or BYU-UUG. ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
