Re: Rooms at WVU available

On Thu, 26 May 2005, Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote:

> 
> In your previous letter, you already concern me because you mention you
> won't be able to make arrangements on such and such a month.  Then there
> is the real issue of what occurs to Morlugs scheduling if you relocate
> or take on a different line of work outside WVU?  Will someone take over
> the scheduling of rooms at WVU for MorLUG?  Will they be able to
> maintain our last Wednesday of every month schedule (which we determined
> through another lengthy process) at 7:00 p.m.  It's nice when people can
> know that Morlug will be meeting at Morlug's established meeting place
> at a set time and date, and the results already speak for themselves.

I agree with that, and this is my concern too. This problem can be
resolved if we get a certain status of an organization affiliated with WVU
as was suggested on several occasions. Before that happens, I can try to
arrange that for my rare absences someone of my colleagues or someone of
our group can get an official permission to conduct our meetings under an
umbrella of educational seminars on Linux or something like that. It can
even be included into our Department's curriculum. At least I can discuss
this with the Chairman, and maybe even better with the CSEE department.
Then it will be official and independent on my presence.

> 
> On the other hand, WVU may want to run a T1 or donate some projectors to
> SRSH.  As a life-long citizen of Morgantown I'm aware of outsider groups
> that the University has charged exorbitant fees for using their
> facilities.

Well, the possibility of this needs to be investigated and conditions 
negotiated if necessary.

> > No offense, but the current situation can be interpreted by outsiders,
> > like we are a group of punks who were only allowed to gather in a
> > remote location under the condition that we fix their equipment 
> > problems there.
> 
> 
> I disagree with this statement completely.  We went through a long
> process looking for a place to have meetings at and it was well
> documented on this list.  SRSH was what we found, and by far the best
> situation for an organization without a cash basis.  If anything, people
>   I've talked to are very impressed that we have our meetings at SRSH
> because it's a place with a long illustrious history.  SRSH is a
> non-profit organization and it's not uncommon for small organizations to
> sometimes acquire their own non-profit status through arrangements with
> an established non-profit organization (I'm going to be talking more
> about this in another thread).

I meant the view of an outsider, who does not look into these detailes.
Again, our meeting place and the location of our external projects do not
have to be the same, especially that it looks like we are paying them with
our services for using their place. If we are to offer that service
anyway, it would look much nicer if we just offerred it without taking
anything in return.

> At this point we are still in a critical state.  Entrusting our group to
> a potential scheduling disaster is a reality I firmly discourage and
> won't support.

I agree that we may need to do some work on this, and I can try to talk to 
our administration and find out if this can be worked out between us and 
them on a legitimate and permanent basis.

Andrei

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Dr. Andrei Smirnov,  West Virginia University
Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Morgantown WV, 26506-6106
Tel:+1(304)293 3111 x2345, fax:+1(304)2936689
Email: [email protected]
http://smirnov.mae.wvu.edu     1024D/5CEDD3E2
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