[activities] President's report, 2010-2011

President's Report 2010-2011 by Sridhar Dhanapalan

Experimentation and minimalism have been the themes of the 2010-2011 period. We
started 2010 (prior to the 2010 AGM) by utilising the many rooms available to
us at Google to hold meetings with many streams at once; we ended in early 2011
by having simple brief meetings, with just one speaker followed by socialising
in the pub.

= Statistics =

Prior to the 2011 AGM (ie, for the 2010 year), we had 34 financial members.
This is around the same as a year ago, but represents just over 60% of our
membership in 2009. Importantly, this number of financial members was not
sufficient to meet our costs during 2011 financial year - but our
treasurer'sreport will cover this in more detail.

Mailing lists (lists.slug.org.au) continue to be a major part of SLUG.
Compared to figures from the previous two years (in brackets), the numbers of
subscribers have been increasing, although the rate of change has slowed:

      announce = 452 (402) (332)
      slug = 787 (778) (732)
      activities = 221 (210) (200)
      slug-chat = 231 (227) (218)
      coders = 190 (172) (155)

Also important is the #slug IRC channel on Freenode.

= Minimalism =

To quote from my email announcing my candidacy for president over a year ago:

  I do believe there's a place for an organisation very much like SLUG, I just
  don't think it makes any sense for that organisation to be called the Sydney
  Linux Users Group; nor do I feel that SLUG, as it currently exists, adequately
  serves the needs of the people I've just talked about. SLUG is slowly dying a
  natural death; I want to be President so I can help ease the
suffering and pain
  and ensure that its death is swift, painless, and serves a purpose.

Through the year I had discussions with many people in the community, both en
masse at meetings and in private. These discussions revealed a broad
consensus across several areas.

Many people feel that SLUG could use more meetings - meetings with a more
specific focus on more technical areas were mentioned; weekend daytime social
events were suggested. However, no-one has yet stepped forward to run any of
these meetings...


Another common theme was that the name SLUG should be retained.

In discussing the differences between SLUG and other similar bodies such as
Linux Australia, there was consensus that SLUG's main differentiator was it's
focus on the local - it's a forum for people to meet local people with similar
interests, for people looking for local jobs, and so on.

Lastly, there was general agreement that the fact that our membership numbers
aren't high enough to pay cover our expenses was a concern.

To address all of these concerns, several motions were passed at the EGM held
immediately prior to the AGM. The committee will be approaching Linux Australia
and asking them to take over the running of the regular Sydney meetings, and
then winding up and leaving the Sydney FOSS community in the hands of Linux
Australia.

= Conclusion =

As one of the oldest Linux user groups in the world, the SLUG community has
shown a remarkable degree of persistence and adaptability. Hopefully the work
we've done over the last 12 months (and are doing over the next 12 months) will
help the community to grow in size and strength.
-- 
SLUG Activities
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