[TriLUG] The sum total of my reelection campaign's advertising budget...

[Joseph Tate]

was blown on this e-mail.

Last year, I set out several goals that I wished to accomplish:
Improve the quality of meeting topics
Provide extra educational experiences through classes, etc.
Increase our membership
Cultivate a TriLUG resource community
Provide an environment for community development.

Some strides were made: our meetings have been increasingly well
attended, not just because of the venue change, but also, I hope,
because of the topics being presented.  We held several classes during
the year; Asterisk, Apache, Shell Scripting, DNS/Bind.  Our membership
continues to grow as well.

However, I don't believe I have done all I can do.  TriLUG as a
community resource is locked up inside each of you, and we currently
have no centralized mechanism to allow you to express your knowledge,
discoveries and challenges.  The mailing list, as entertaining as it
is some times, is not the best medium for disseminating some types of
information.  TriLUG has had a CMS system in the works for well over a
year now.  We need to get it up and running.

We also need to do more outside of meetings.  TriLUG should have at
least 10 mini-courses or installfests a year.  And, as Jason stated,
we need to reach out to our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and family
members and help them to discover and take advantage of the TriLUG
resources and knowledgebase.

Some new goals for the coming year.  

Create a mini-course committee.  This committee, appointed by the SC,
would be in charge of setting up a mini-course nearly every month. 
They would organize the venue, the speaker and arrange for the
refreshments, as well as any publicity necessary.  This committee
would also run our installfests and/or organize them with other LUGs
in the area (i.e. NCSULUG or DULUG).

Expand our membership benefits.  Beyond discounts at local ISPs and
Retailers and simple IMAP/POP3 mail services, I'd like to provide
Secondary MX services to any members who wish it.  Some other services
we could provide might include livejournal-like blogging space, and
maybe even webdav space.  As part of the CMS system mentioned above,
I'd like to set up for sale/trade forums, social event planning
forums, etc to keep the traffic on the list on topic, and relevant. 
(I can't claim the idea about forums to be entirely original, but I'd
like to implement it.)  There are also a miriad of benefits that a few
people are taking advantage of, but that aren't necessarily standard
benefits.  I would like to change that.

Increase the camaraderie within the membership.  TriLUG events are a
great place to meet new people for networking and socializing
purposes.  TriLUG could do a better job of catering to this goal.

Finally, I'd like to help kick off an advanced topics/certification
track.  These self run groups are vital to deepening the understanding
of how Linux and its various systems work.  In the past they have not
been officially sanctioned TriLUG sponsored groups.  Perhaps its time
to change that.

We have grown significantly over the last year, and I would like to
continue working on the Steering Committee to develop TriLUG further.

Thank you,
Joseph Tate
Personal e-mail: jtate AT dragonstrider DOT com
Web: http://www.dragonstrider.com

P.S.  If you'd like to reference my bio from last year, it's available
at http://www.trilug.org/pipermail/trilug/Week-of-Mon-20040510/026250.html