Corrections and additions welcome!

Attendees

• Rob Anderson
• Jon "maddog" Hall
• Ed Lawson
• Rob Lembree
• Ben Scott

Discussion

Everyone seemed to agree with maddog's categorizations of GNHLUG'ers, and that a general lack of interest seems to be chronic with GNHLUG, at least in the past few years.

Rob L expressed his frustration as Head Penguin. He sees a lack of interest, a lack of response, a lack of volunteers, and general apathy. He got lots of sympathy, but nobody was stupid^Wbrave enough to volunteer to take over his position.

The topic of incorporating GNHLUG as a "real" non-profit came up again. It was abandoned, again, temporarily, with the idea that it can be resurrected when we can all decide what the job of the state-wide GNHLUG organization is. Rob L mentioned that formalizing an organization didn't make sense until we knew what we wanted to do. We started talking about a charter.

We all agreed that more advanced notice is required for darn near everything we do.

The idea of using technology (especially web-related things) to help GNHLUG organizers was brought up. Nothing really directed occurred; it seemed like more of a general "software would be nice" discussion. Ben made the point that no amount of software is going to solve people problems.

People asked for a presentation or "how-to" on how to use Wiki. Ben repeatedly stated it was very easy, but people still wanted one. Ben pledged to create a "quick start" guide to Wiki.

The topic of weekend meetings was brought up. It appears some people cannot make weeknight meetings due to time constraints. Weekend meetings might also enable a longer meeting, with scheduled components, so that people can more easily skip what they don't want. We decided to try the weekend meeting for the next "quarterly" meeting, which will likely be Summer.

maddog pledged to line up a "top-notch" speaker for the next year's worth of Quarterly Meetings, to take some load off Rob L (and the rest of us).

Rob L voiced the opinion that the GNHLUG home page was "too busy". Ben pledged to change that. The general opinion was that the GNHLUG home page should have notices of upcoming and recent events only.

People expressed concern that only people who knew Wiki could enter events. Ben repeatedly offered to "be the UI" for such people; specifically, that he would do the Wiki entry and formatting if people just emailed him text.

The general opinion was voiced that calls for help/volunteers should be made in small, discreet chunks. Rather then saying "We need help with big project X", the question should be "We need somebody to do specific task XYZ." Likewise, the best tasks are those that are easily stopped, restarted, and transferred, to work around people's busy schedules.

Ben voiced the opinion that, in general, organizations like GNHLUG need to "beat people over the head" to get any kind of response. That includes both meeting attendance from non-organizers, as well as participation in events and projects.

Ben voiced the opinion that communication is an ESSENTIAL element of anything, and GNHLUG in particular.

During the meeting, almost everyone had ideas for projects that they'd like to see done. None of them were written down, so these minutes don't list what they were.