[TriLUG-announce] Wed, Dec 1: Organizational meeting

[Justis Peters]

DATE - Wednesday, December 1
TIME - 7:00pm
LOCATION - RedHat HQ
ROOM - Cafeteria / Conference Room (where we normally meet)
DIRECTIONS - http://www.redhat.com/about/contact/ww/americas/raleigh.html
FULL INFO - http://trilug.org/2010-12-01/OrgStrategy


For the last ten years, TriLUG has been operating as a NC non-profit 
corporation. In the early days, that structure was necessary because the 
LUG accepted donated hardware and re-donated it to schools and local 
LUG's. Since then, Linux has become more mainstream, accepted at 
corporations, and sometimes even used at schools. And in that time, 
TriLUG's mission has changed significantly, from being an incubator to 
more of an educational/technical/social group.

We're still devoted to education and outreach, promoting the use of free 
and open source software. However, as a business, the main income and 
expenses that we maintain are related to pizza and meetings.

We are entirely a volunteer-run organization. The Steering Committee 
members dedicate a lot of time to putting together quality programs for 
the members to learn from and enjoy. But there is also an overhead 
associated with running the LUG, and that involves paperwork, taxes and 
corporate filings.

Complicating matters is the fact that we are run by a collection of 
volunteers that changes every year in May. As the LUG's leadership 
undergoes its annual transition, we rely on effective hand-off's. Over 
time, the Steering Committee has been focused on tactical problems: 
where to find speakers, the price of pizza, finding donors and sponsors. 
In the meantime, some of the hand-off's and administrative tasks have 
taken a back seat. In fact, we have sometimes been delinquent in some of 
our administrative duties. This is not a recent problem... it has 
persisted for several years.

The meeting on 12/1 is for interested LUG members to discuss the current 
state of the LUG as an organization, and to brainstorm on possible 
changes that might make reduce our administrative overhead. We will not 
be planning meeting content or sysadmin duties or other tactical things 
-- this meeting is strategic. It's the boring stuff -- paying taxes, 
filing paperwork.

The "fun" stuff -- meetings, events, technical discussions, and so on -- 
will continue as normal.