🚀 go-pugleaf

I made some comments in a recent posting concerning the activities of 
chapters. Through my haste and misunderstanding of the operations of
both SWiGS and SESSPOOLE, I have upset some people. I apologise for this.
I do appear to have misrepresented these groups. It was not my intention to 
malign or denegrate these groups or the efforts of the people who run them.

I appear to have particularly upset people from SESSPOOLE. I had misrepresented
them as being more of a social group than carrying out more general AUUG
activities. I am sorry for this, it was not my intent. My comments also 
overlooked the fact that the three marvelous and highly successful summer 
conferences in Melbourne over the last three years were organised by SESSPOOLE
members. My comments were in part based on my understanding of SESSPOOLE's
activities from many years ago when they first started and did not take into
account their development in more recent years.

It was not my intention to slander any current AUUG chapter, but to point out 
the need for AUUG to build a base of regional chapters, fully representative
of AUUG members and providing a wide range of member benefits and activities 
for all AUUG memebrs in those regions. The differences in the (percieved?) 
operations of the various chapters have to be mimimised in order to fairly 
distribute AUUG funding in the future (RSN).

				----oOo----

At the risk of making yet another `election stand' I would like to explain
my ideas regarding chapter developments and what I am doing on the committee.
Perhaps if people can appreciate where I am coming from and what I am trying 
to achieve, then they will be able to excuse me when I put the wrong foot in 
my mouth.


I think it is time for a shift in emhpasis within AUUG from viewing the 
Winter Conference and AUUGN as the main activities to one of viewing
nationwide chapter activities as our 'bread-and-butter' activities and
the winter conference as our showcase.

This is important because the only way we can continue to provide real 
member benefits in the future is to provide local organisation who can
bring those benefits (whatever they may be) directly to the members. 

It is also important that we actively encourage chapter activities in all 
major member areas to maintain AUUG's national standing. 

It is extremely important because there are more local user groups forming
in Canberra and Brisbane. Unless AUUG plays an active role in their forming
and continued operation, they may question the benefit of being a part of AUUG
and go it alone. Taken to the conclusion, such a trend would lead to eight
(or more) local state based Unix groups with little more than vague affiliation
with AUUG. There may be little to recommend AUUG membership over that of the
local group, and so AUUG might decline into obscurity. Neither AUUG or the local
groups would truely benefit from that.

[ this scenario isn't all that unlikely. fo historic reasons, the 
W.A. Unix Group (WAUG) is a reasonably good example of a trend to an
autonomous local user group - but more of this later ]

Until now, chapter activities have been relatively undefined. AUUG was 
glad to have groups of people willing to organise any member activities 
and willingly accepted petitions to form chapters. 

In order to take the next step, that of actively supporting and funding 
chapters, we must neccessarily formalise and (to a certain extent) 
standardise chapters. [ I'm not saying they should become bearacratic
and stuffy, just more organised in some sense of the word ]. Any reasonable
level of funding will require a chapter committee structure (at least a
treasurer) and some constitution protecting its members. We must also be 
careful that chapter funding derived from AUUG (as opposed to sponsorships or 
special local events) should be seen to be being spent on 'mainstream' AUUG 
activities (whatever they are). [ remember the flack we drew when someone 
thought we should keep AUUG's money in a different account, or more recently 
over where winter conference money was spent? ]

This may not suit all chapters, some may wish to remain reasonably informal
or they may not wish to get involved in organising a wide range of activities,
rather prefering to stick to fewer or more specialised functions. This is ok,
but it should not stand in the way of AUUG forming fully representative
and fully functional chapters in regional areas. The 'lower-key' chapters
[ and I'm not trying to offend anyone here :-] could still exist as a special
interest chapter or somesuch [ but shouldn't expect to attract the same level 
of funding as other moer active chapters ]

The real change in all this is in chapter funding. AUUG wants to begin funding
chapters in a serious way to run local meetings, summer conferences, seminars
workshops and anything else you can think of. Initially the funding may have to
come from a per-capita share of membership fees and from general revenue. Once
chapters are in widespread operation and have matured in the services provided,
we can begin investing more funds from other sources (yes, the winter 
conference can again support AUUG activities ). We cannot, however, pour large
sums of money into chapters until we can show that the money is being well 
spent on acceptable general member benefits ( we have a lot of critics and
scrutineers (sp?) out there ).

I see the main activities of chapters being organising regular face-to-face 
meetings of (local) members, probably with a guest speaker as a drawcard. 
Other activities might include public seminars, workshops, summer conferences,
providing advice and contacts to industry etc.

For it's part AUUG would continue to organise the winter conferences, the
newsletter, membership and general AUUG business as it does today. AUUG would
also coordinate visiting international and national speakers, coordinate and
organise travelling seminars, and general AUUG office administration. AUUG
comimttee/administration would also provide whatever support they could to
reduce the workload on chapter committees.

				----oOo----
Thats the general idea (and provbably the most succinctly I have yet been able 
to state it).
			
Now the disclaimer. My interest in all this is that I believe it to be in the
best interrests of the WAUG and the AUUG if both those groups combined (ie.
all WAUG members joined AUUG and WAUG became a proper chapter of the AUUG,
ceasing to exist in it's own right). 

This view isn't currently shared by the majority of WAUG members because 
they look at what WAUG offers them and compares it to what AUUG *currently* 
offers and come up lacking with regard to AUUG. I'm afraid I am inclined to 
agree, I have no compelling arguments beyond the winter conference and AUUGN 
and they don't seem to impress. All I can argue is the potential in AUUG to 
offer more.

The only way I can show to them the benefit of paying AUUG's higher membership 
fees (instead of WAUG's lower one) is to help AUUG build local chapters 
operation to the point where they are at least as good as WAUG's, 
AND THEN BUILD MORE LOCAL MEMBER BENEFITS to the point where the conclusion 
is inescapable.

WAUG only ever began because AUUG was too far away and too young to support
a local chapter in Perth in 1984. If I were to start a local chapter today, it 
would have been in the fashion of the WAUG, but as a proper subgroup of AUUG,
and not an independant organisation, but it's too late for that now.

For the same reason, it's important that AUUG does all it can to ensure that
new local groups form as part of AUUG and not independently.

				----oOo----

AUUG has convened a subcommittee (is there anybody out there?) to define a
model for chapter organisation and funding. 

The subcommittee was formed in response from the new Canberra chapter for 
support, funding and guidance. It includes representative from the Canberra 
chapter, myself and Scott Merrilees (also of the AUUG committee and who is 
interested in forming a Newcastle chapter). Our intention was originally to
form a model of funding and responsibiity for the Canberra chapter, which is
why the committee didn't have representation from other chapters. We have 
extended the task to define a general model for AUUG and for future emerging 
chapters.
			
I had hoped to thrash out a preliminary model (probably in a bit more detail 
than what I have done here) before calling for comment. I want to avoid the 
endless round of comment and flame on the net, but if anyone particularly 
feels thay would like to actively contribute to the task, or if the chapters 
would like to nominate a representative I would be happy to include them in 
the committee deliberations.

I will also pass on any constructive comments or suggestions that people might
wish to make (pls email me).

Glenn Huxtable
AUUG committee 
-- 
Email  - glenn@cs.uwa.edu.au	  ,-_|\ 			 glenn huxtable
phone  - +61 9 380 2878 	 /     \ 	       dept of computer science
fax    - +61 9 380 1089   	 *_,-._/	university of western australia
                                      v