Re: Voting and Leadership Discussions

I apologize for following up a lengthy email with another rather long  
one ...

Jonathan, I know you mean well with the long email below, but I think  
what you are trying to achieve is overkill for our group at this time.

In fact, I would argue that a lot of what you proposed is what killed  
MorFree and I was hoping to stay away from in MorLUG. We don't need a  
well defined mission statement, MorFree demonstrated how drafting  
just a simple sentence or 2 among a group of people can take weeks  
(as you'll see below, i've already picked your mission statement  
apart at the end of this email ;-P ).

I don't feel that a group of our size needs an executive board of  
directors. What exactly are the issues on hand that need a special  
group of people to make decisions that shouldn't be open to the rest  
of the group to come to a consensus on?

I still feel that we just need one leader position. If a subject  
comes up that ultimately needs to be discussed let the whole group  
discuss it. I'm not even sure that a voting system is needed. If a  
consensus can't be reached by the time that one is needed (in a  
meeting or via the list) the leader must take all views into account  
and make the decision for the group.  The leader is someone that has  
been voted in (I say, by a show of hands or paper in a hat) at the  
next meeting and then every N months/years afterward (Every june  
would work) and should therefore have the trust of the group to be  
able to make decisions, otherwise they should not have that authority  
at all and be replaced.

And now, i would like to make my POINT:

There is already a disagreement about how things should be run. And  
we know the view of at least one other member that feels that any  
voting would be bad for the group (or at least did know his view at  
the time of his lighting talk). How long is it going to take to  
resolve these issues so that everyone is happy?

How many people are just along for the ride and don't care about the  
outcome at all?

Does the outcome of any debates that result from this really matter  
at all? Will the group continue in much the same fashion regardless  
of whether we have a mission statement/BOD/constitution or a single  
leader?

>     * Walk the walk. (Do the LUG's computing on Linux.)

What if i upgraded the server to BSD? Does this mean its no longer  
eligible to run the LUG's website? We've been through this before,  
both on this list and sitting in the moose. A LUG isn't just about  
linux. Hurd, bsd, freedos, etc are just as welcome.

(No i don't plan on switching the server from linux)

>
> Mission Statement (my version):  "To advocate, educate, and support  
> the
> community and provide social outlets for the outstanding qualities of
> Free Software."

So we exist to advocate and educate and support the community?

Perhaps you meant, "To advocate, support, and provide education for  
Free Software within the community"

but I still don't agree with that statement.

Advocate, yes, this is one of our jobs/goals.

Support? No, not really. When people think support they think "these  
guys will fix all my computer problems" or "MorLUG == Free tech  
support" ... While providing support in this fashion is one of our  
functions, that is a direct result of who we are. If it was part of  
our mission statement we'd almost have to advertise it since it is  
worded as support for the community (especially if we ever get non- 
profit status).

Educate, No. Again, this is a direct result of who we are and what we  
do. Each meeting exists to provide education but we are not  
advertising and going out of our way trying to go out and teach  
people in the community how to use OpenOffice.org in a class setting,  
or giving seniors weekly classes on using Firefox and the web.

While i don't disagree that providing such classes might be a good  
activity for us once in a while, we don't have the resources to  
provide that level of education to the community. We don't have a  
high speed internet connection and a lab of computers at our disposal  
to offer classes like that (each person would have to have a computer  
to sit at). Even if we found a lab that we could have regular  
meetings in, would we have access to Free Software on the machines?  
Would we be allowed to install it? I seriously doubt any  
administrator would allow that, unless the software was already on  
the machines.

Mike.
[email protected]