[nflug] Meetings - A Brief History of NFLUG and its Future

Tue Nov 25 09:02:16 EST 2008

Hi all, 

Sorry for not responding sooner ( I guess 3 months is enough time to
keep silent)..

This email is going to be long, but just bear with me and try to read it
to the end, because I have an important reason for finally responding
now.

(and please forgive me if some of my memory is fuzzy..)

PAST:

Back in 1994, when I was a grad student at UB, I created the Buffalo
Linux Users Group. This primarily consisted of UB students (gotta love
UB being an island to itself), and we held monthly meetings in UB
classrooms. Fast forward to 1998, I was working downtown and simply
became too busy with work to continue leading the user group. I handed
the reins to James Simmons who headed it up until he decided to move out
of the area. Right about that time, we received an email from Bob Meyer
who was running the Niagara Linux Users Group. Bob proposed that both
user groups join together in order to create a more active and larger
group. This made sense at the time not only to allow for a larger
usergroup base, but to satisfy James' need to leave. So at that time,
the two user groups merged together to become the Niagara Frontier Linux
Users Group (NFLUG). Bob courageously headed up the NFLUG for a number
years and did a wonderful job. I then pretty much hid in my corner until
2004, when around the same time Bob's personal responsibilities needed
him to take a more passive role in NFLUG. Peter from Cybersource
volunteered to host and organize the meetings. This lasted about a year,
and then around 2005, Richard Hubbard volunteered ITT tech to host the
meetings, and himself to help organize them. In 2005, I also saw the
need for a more advanced Linux Users Group. The NFLUG to date seemed to
primarily focus on new linux users and helping them out. In 2005, I
started the Buffalo Professional Linux Users Group (BPLUG) which focused
on using Linux in an Enterprise environment, basically having
presentations about more advanced topics.  At around 2006, Richard had
to leave ITT Tech and subsequently also needed to take a more passive
role in the user group. Since then, the user group has pretty much been
free-wheeling with little leadership.To my knowledge, there are no
organizing documents for NFLUG or BPLUG.

PRESENT:

In my experience being involved in a number of user groups, community
organizations, volunteer efforts, etc.. There is one central component
that members of any group needs. This core requirement is LEADERSHIP;
without it, any group will be guaranteed to fail.

I believe the present NFLUG situation exemplifies this. There has not
been an NFLUG or BPLUG meeting in many many months (years?). To my
knowledge, there is no leader of the user group and there is no
"Official" leadership position. There are no organizing documents.
Currently, the primary use of the usergroup is this mailing list.
Whenever I bump into  a member of NFLUG, one of the first things they
ask me is "When is there going to be a NFLUG meeting". I get requests
from people almost begging for there to be a meeting. This is really a
shame because so many people want to have a meeting and want to gain
knowledge and experience, and it does not happen due to lack of
leadership.

Please understand that I am not saying this to berate or chastise anyone
or their efforts. I fully understand and am an example myself of how
busy people can get and how other responsibilities must supersede these
type of activities.  I wish that even I could give more time for this
organization, but the reality is that I (and others) cannot. I am also
very thankful for the people that in the past have stepped up and did
what they could. Leading a usergroup like this really is a decent amount
of work.

So the present situation of NFLUG and BPLUG is glum at best and is
destined to be more of the same; providing little value to most and a
lot of frustration to some.

FUTURE:

I was lucky to have recently been present for the first meeting of a new
Linux user group..WNYLUG (www.wnylug.org), started by Brian Powell. I
must honestly say that I have not been this excited about such a group
for years. The meeting was truly inspiring. Brian has a significant
amount of experience being involved in a Linux user group in the past
and is an official Ambassador of the Fedora project. Brian knows how to
run a usergroup, and he has the excitement, knowledge, initiative, and
vision to grow it to where I believe it needs to grow to. In the first
meeting he already had a mission and charter. I believe this will be an
invaluable service to the area and everyone on this list and am thankful
for his tremendous efforts already.

With all of that said, there are a number of decisions that need to be
made in which everyone here should have input. Understandably, while
there is a big initiative for WNYLUG, one must figure out what do to
with NFLUG, BPLUG, and the corresponding mailing lists.

In simple terms, we have somebody that is willing to step up and lead
whatever Linux usergroup is available. As far as what the name is, does
it really matter if there are consistent, current, and valuable
meetings? For me, my main concern is that there be a viable and active
Linux user group.

My $.02 and suggestion is as follows:

I personally like the name WNYLUG. I think it best describes the
geographical membership better than BPLUG or NFLUG. Upon speaking to
Brian, he also like the idea of having a more "Enterprise" level
usergroup, and is willing to lead that one also (it might simply be a
sub-group of WNYLUG). So, if it was up to me, I would merge NFLUG and
BPLUG into WNYLUG and adopt the WNYLUG charter and mission statement for
the time being. The next WNYLUG meeting is December 10th. At that time,
there will be voting for the leadership and acceptance of the mission
statement and charter (note, even though Brian is founding this and
taking on the initial leadership, actual voting for all officers will be
done). Anybody is welcome to come and not only vote, but put themselves
up for election.

Once this is done, the next item that needs to be cleaned up is the
mailing lists. I would suggest that the only mailing list that remains
be WNYLUG. People can either manually sign up for wnylug, and at date
certain, the nflug mailing list be shut down. I strongly discourage
having multiple Linux mailing lists be active at one time, It only
encourages division of our local community.

Thanks for listening and for your input,

Mark

From: nflug-bounces at nflug.org [mailto:nflug-bounces at nflug.org] On Behalf
Of Tom Reid
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2008 11:29 AM
To: nflug at nflug.org
Subject: Re: [nflug] Meetings

Hi Joe and all,

I am still at ITT Tech and can make space/resources available.  Although
I couldn't make the meeting(s) there, we apparently also have Trocaire
available (thanks to whoever set that up).  Our need seems to be less
about space available and more about commitment--people(volunteers!) to
keep things moving month to month.  If we have events and subjects
planned further in advance, we will probably have better turnout and
more involvement.  For the near future, I am willing to help with
meetings (with the incentive that ITT "encourages" its instructors to do
this kind of thing for 'professional development' and 'community
involvement' !).  However, I won't (can't, don't have that much free
time) do it by myself.

But first a request for some background.  Mark (Bob?) and any other of
the original or past organizers/leaders, can you give us some history,
specifically whether NFLUG has any organizing documents (charter?
founding statement?), whether there were ever formal officers,
elections, etc?  Or did you just do what you could in your spare time?
Having several (committed/Elected!) people share the load is better than
one or two, and having ongoing recognition for those currently carrying
the load can help until the next "election" when maybe some others
volunteer to take the lead for a while...

Maybe some disagree about the need for structure - comments?

Thanks, Tom

On 8/18/08, Joe <josephj at main.nc.us> wrote: 

I haven't been to an nflug meeting in  a long time.

Are there regular meetings now or just once in a while when someone has
the gumption to organize one?

Do we have a meeting location that is generally available - like that
great space we had at ITT?

Most of the interest I have seen is for relatively advanced topics.

Are there any other end-user types (like me) around who would appreciate
things like presentations on desktop applications or some meeting time
devoted to ironing out small problems in people's systems - especially
if they are notebook systems that are easy to bring in and set up?
There used to be install fests, but I guess the newer distros are
generally so good at figuring things out for themselves that the fests
aren't needed any more.

I know that sometimes I have problems that I can't seem to get resolved
on the list or find in Google that I'm pretty sure someone more
technical than I am could resolve in a couple of minutes if they had the
system in front of them and could see what was happening.

Joe
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