[activities] Minutes of May committee meeting

Minutes of May 2008 Committee Meeting

Present — Sridhar, Ken, Michael, Sonia, Anna (taking minutes)

Apologies — Scott Waller

Opened at 12:15, closed at 1:15

Next committee meeting

    *  Next monthly meeting is May 30th — Following Sunday is June 8,
Monday June 9 is a public holiday, next weekend (14-15) is education
expo - take on list to sort out

Previous SLUG Meeting (May 2)

    * How well did it work?
          o general talk was really good, well targeted and well presented
          o in-depth talk was good, but not having sluglets meant that
it had to be suitable for beginners as well — not ideal
          o filming worked ok — thanks Ken

    * What can we do better?
          o missed sluglets because of similar topic, maybe the wrong
decision — better to change the topic of sluglets
          o timing could have been better
          o need to define roles — someone (who isn't the person
running the meeting) to keep an eye on timing , etc
          o slides were done at the last minute, should be ready in advance
          o lapel mic would have been better for speaker — one of the
Atlassian lapel mics has been located and will be available for the
next meeting

Next SLUG monthly meeting (May 30)

    * This is the meeting after cebit, should keep that in mind when
planning talks
    * Roles:
          o Point person - Sridhar
          o Sonia — talk to new people in break, take sluglets
          o Anna and sonia — timing, crowd control (anna to bring bell down)
          o Anna — tea + coffee supplies
    * Venue — Atlassian is fine
    * General talk –— Zachary Zeus on FOSS BI (Pentaho)
    * In-depth talk — post to list today, haven't got anyone in mind -
clarify in-depth is not the same as technical
    * Sluglets — sonia will run, will prepare short talk - something
simple, email on linux?
    * Anna will prepare handout with details of dinner location and
slug website for newbies

Next next SLUG monthly meeting (June 27)

    * after education expo
    * General talk — orgainsed by Silvia? [looking at email, talk
organised by Silvia "Open approaches to persistence — A report on the
PILIN project https://www.pilin.net.au/" is scheduled for July
meeting]
    * Technical talk — nothing orgainsed
    * SLUGlets — nothing organised - Sonia will ask for topics in sluglets

General Business

    * Raised by Sridhar: We should have a common template for slides
for every meeting containing stuff like the meeting name, date/time,
speakers, how to become a member, mailing list info, etc. This will
make slide creation easier for each meeting, and ensure that we cover
the main points. They should be very quick to go through, just as a
'warm-up' for guests (especially newcomers).
          o Slides have been started in google docs and shared with
the committee. Need to get photos of all committee members. Slides
could be posted to general slug list a day or two before the meeting,
at the very least finalised and sent to committee list.

    * Raised by Sridhar: Are there any ways to refine the process for
committee meetings? We should get into the habit of organising an
agenda on the wiki. Each agenda should be saved on its own page, to
prevent the main Agenda page from getting too long. Would it be wise
to store each agenda on the same page as the corresponding minutes?
          o Agreed — we'll try this approach

    * Raised by Ken: There's some paperwork that needs to be done for
the committee transfer
          o change of registration details form for dept. fair trading
— completed now
          o bank authorisation forms — some done, needs to be completed
          o annual report for fair trading — completed
          o australian business registrar form — need tax file numbers
from everyone

    * Raised by Ken: Constitutional changes from AGM need to be dealt
with. The changes which passed need to be merged into the
constitution. The constitution should be available in a form that
isn't easily alterable (i.e. at slug.org.au, not wiki.slug.org.au).
Need to check with Dept of fair trading and file new constitution or
whatever their procedure is.
          o No changes have been made to the constitution before, so
not sure of the process. Anna will investigate. This is urgent, as
there may be a time limit on this that we have already exceeded.

    * Raised by Ken: What is the status of getting video transcoded
and put online? Should we be looking into forming an A/V team for
recording and transcoding video?
          o Details of how to transcode the video is on the wiki.
          o There is a backlog of videos that haven't been recorded.
The old ones are on tape, we need to figure out how to get them off —
Michael will see if his camera can do it.
          o Matt Moor and Chris Degan probably have old video tapes —
Sridhar will contact them
          o Need to make sure at least two people know how to video
meetings and transcode, should not be on the shoulders of one person.
          o Forming an a/v team is a good idea, especially to get
through the backlog of old videos, but we don't need to create a
separate mailing list at this point

    * Raised by Ken: We need to emphasize SLUGlets more; a clear split
to a different promoted topic and audience group is needed with a
auditorily separate room with its own point person is needed. We do
not have a general talk followed by a technical talk and maybe
SLUGLETS in a corner, We have 3 talks. I have not been to a SLUGLETS
that has been as inclusive and interesting as a technical lecture, The
few I have been to have not enticed me to return, and I would consider
myself in the target audience. We have a large general talk followed
by 2 smaller talks; a technical talk and general/introductory talk on
an interesting topic. If the general/introductory talk does not steal
people from the technical talk then it is not good enough in title,
promotion, venue, organization, speaker, slides etc. All of the
technical people are not interested in all of the technical topics so
an indicator of quality is to be able to entice some of them each
time.
          o Agreed
          o Maybe worth planning a series of sluglets talks, linux
from the ground up? We don't want to be excluding people who can't
come to every sluglets, though.

    * Raised by Sonia: Is it appropriate to announcing
http://training.snowfrog.net/ at a SLUG meeting?
          o Committee is happy for this to be mentioned during
announcements, and posted to the lists.

    *  cebit is coming up - Lindsay is in charge, Michael will check
status with him
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