🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Mar13.040211.11451@DIALix.oz.au> abcc@DIALix.oz.au (Adrian Booth Computing Consultants) writes:
>In <1992Mar10.005300.26091@megadata.uucp> andrew@megadata.mega.oz.au (Andrew McRae) writes:
>
...
>I for one hope that we can wrest control of AUUG back from the marketing
>types who dominate it now and give it back to the technical members.

The only way to "wrest control" is to stand for election or at least vote
for people who stand for your views (if I remember average number of vote
over the last couple of years has been around 80!).  Both of which are
difficult if you are not a member.

>AUUG seems to be turning from being a technical UNIX group to an
>"Open Systems" marketing group. It's an attractive strategy for the
>"Open Systems" vendors, actually - get some of their staff involved,
>gradually change the focus of the group, and before too long you have created
>a marketing group that meets your requirements *and* that already has 
>hundreds of members. A lot cheaper than setting one up from scratch yourself.
>As a piece of political intrigue, my hat is off to those people behind it. 
>As an AUUG member, however, I hope (and expect) to see some heads roll at the 
>next election. (Actually, I tell a lie - I am so disgusted at AUUG that I
>didn't renew my membership for 1992).

Come off it.  Certainly there have been changes in direction, and that
is something that the membership has to consider, but none of the vendors
have any trouble starting their own groups.  Even more, which alliance are
you talking about (because no single vendor can claim to control "Open
Systems").

I'd also like to know what on what evidence you claim we are a marketing
group?  What is all this marketing we are doing?  (You may well claim
we are not handling the technical side too well, but that is a different
matter.)

I don't see how you can claim that two (count them, Pat and Rolf)
members of the committee have turned us into a marketing group.  Both
certainly have a different perspective, but then no two members have
quite the same opinion on most matters.  Then again, that may be the
real seat of the problem, the six "non-marketing" members (I'm not
sure how you would categorise Peter Karr), have differing opinions on
what we want to offer members.

...

>What you *should* do is print it out and snail mail it. If the committee
>is acting responsibly there is no way it can ignore a physical letter
>delivered to it with a request "To be presented to the committee
>at its next meeting". (The next committee meeting is real soon now,
>maybe a FAX would be better). I have written a letter in this form to the
>committee basically detailing the points you listed above; the more that
>they receive (especially all at once), the better.

The committee takes note of any comments by the members (whether on paper
or in bytes).  However critical comments with no suggested actions is
soon forgotten, whereas concrete (and practical) suggestions will usually
get some consideration.

(Actually, as an after thought, e-mail will often get more consideration
because all the committee will get a copy before the meeting, whereas
paper, unless it is something extraordinary, will only be seen at the
meeting.)

							Frank Crawford