NFLUG MISSION STATEMENT

[Robert Meyer]

--- "Dennis J. Eberl" <dje at pcom.net> wrote:
> Bob,
> 
> Thanks. You are the only member conscientious enough to reply.
> See below.
> 
> 
> Robert Meyer wrote:
> 
> > Dennis, in the Mission statement, could you spell out what "SOHO
> > businesses" are?  Now I didn't just fall off the turnip truck but
> when
> > I got to that part, I just sat there and blinked for a few seconds.
>  My
> > processor went into an exception loop and I had to reboot my
> thought
> > process with debugging enabled.
> 
> I'm not sure what you are getting at. SOHO = Small Office or Home
> Office.
> My thought was that members with small businesses have legitimate
> needs
> that can be addressed by Linux.
> 
> The good news is at least you didn't go into HALT.
> 
> Are you objecting to including "SOHO members" or just not familiar
> with the acronym?

Actually, I was concerned with the fact that I didn't know that 'SOHO'
stood for "Small Office/Home Office".  The resulting unresolved
reference nearly caused a kernel panic. Maybe spelling it out as 'Small
Office/Home Office', rather than 'SOHO' may be in order.

> 
> > Also, the word 'indeed' has two 'd's in it (where you talk about
> > Blinky's "remarkable talent").
> 
> Thanks. It's impossible to proof your own stuff and the editor I use
> doesn't
> have a spell checker. Will fix immediately.
> 
> > Other than that, looks good to me...
> >
> > Bob
> 
> Thanks again. We need a Meeting Planning Committee of something
> to get our nflug list straightened out and coordinate our efforts on
> what
> is to presented, when, and by whom. Since no one listens to me -- I
> can't
> believe people are afraid to speak up, because they think I might
> flame
> them, but I'll take your word for it -- it would be helpful if you or
> John
> Neff raised the issue. Some thought ought to be given to who should
> be
> on the committee. For example, I was pleased as punch to see how Ron
> Maggio was asking questions at this past meeting. He and David
> Raczyk (from Computers for Children) and Kevin McCarthy (if he
> is interested) might well be considered to represent newbie's
> interests.

This probably should be discussed in a different thread.  I have some
ideas that we should kick around as a group regarding the amount of
'structured' vs. 'unstructured' time that we have at the meetings...
> 
> Anyway, it's just a suggestion. To be honest with you, having worked
> very hard to keep this group together and growing, I was frankly
> insulted by not being invited to the meeting you, James, and John
> had. I didn't stay on Darin's neck making sure we got the projector
> and screen only for your benefit. I had been posting regularly to the
> list about the need to walk newbies through command line stuff,
> which is something I had planned to do, but gave up on the minute
> I walked into the meeting. I loved the presentation, but I am sure
> it left most newbies up a creek as far as learning how to run Linux.
> To expect them to object and speak up is to expect the dead to walk.
> Their interests need to be protected and their needs addressed by
> and group that purports to be a LUG.

No slight intended, Dennis.  The way we got together was fairly
impropmtu.  James and I were tasked with doing a presentation on
firewalls so we arranged to get together to try to come up with a set
of things that we were going to talk about.  I know John from work and
was chatting with him during lunch when I mentioned that I had to leave
to get in touch with James so that we could arrange to meet.  John
mentioned that he'd like to help because he'd already built a router
similar to what we were talking about.  Since I hadn't been able to get
the parts together to even start testing, I thought it was a good idea
so we met at my place to try to get one of these things working "the
hard way" so we had the whole process figured out.

I honestly didn't realize that you were interested in being part of the
presentation or helping figure the thing out at that point.  My
schedule's been really crazy lately and my brain doesn't always fire
the correct synapses at times.  Had I known, I would have invited you. 
I also didn't know about the work to get a projector and, in fact, was
planning on trying to do it on a 17" display.  I also wasn't expecting
to have the entire place watching that demo, I thought only the people
that were interested in firewalls was going to be involved with our
presentation and that someone else was going to be doing a parallel
effort with the folks new to linux.  Thinking about it to myself here
('cuz there's noone else here to talk to at the moment :-) maybe that's
the way we should do things... Have more than one thing going at a time
so that folks can choose what they want.  I fully expected folks to be
doing installs while I nattered on about firewall setups.

Well, so much for addressing the issue in another thread... Now where
did I hide that soap box?  I was thinking that the meetings need more
"unstructured" time for people to actually 'socialize'.  We are
claiming to be a 'social' club, so a bit more "face time" with each
other, rather than just presentations might be a good idea.  I used to
be a member of a Magician's group but every meeting brought another
travelling magician/lecturer to present to the group and virtually no
time was available for the folks to talk to each other.  There were
some very experienced magicians in the group that would have been very
happy to work with some of the younger folks 1 on 1 to teach/coach them
but no time was allotted for that.  I dropped out of the group in
disappointment because they claimed that they were a 'social' group
when in fact, it was a lecture club.

We should poll the folks in the club and find out what they want.

I'm tired and am going home now...

Cheers!

=====
Bob Meyer
Knightwing Communications
36 Cayuga Blvd
Depew, NY 14043
Phone: 716-308-8931 or 716-681-0076
Meyer_RM at Yahoo.com

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