<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
Regarding a venue, I regret to say I have reached out to Sonic twice
over the last few months and have not heard any reply which is
highly out of the ordinary based on their past responsiveness. I am
unsure if my primary contact is overwhelmed or if there is another
issue at play.<br>
<br>
Talk members with Sonic connections, would someone be willing to
inquire gently? Right now the question is "What would it take for us
to resume meeting in Sonic's break room at 7 PM on the 2nd Tuesday
of every month?" and we're open to discussion if there are
particular limitations in place.<br>
<br>
Thanks in advance for anyone who happens to know more,<br>
<br>
A.C.<br>
******<br>
Board Member at Large, North Bay Linux Users' Group<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 7/23/22 07:16, Brad Morrison wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:25ef1d13-5b9a-2b11-e459-a1b6ccac2695@sonic.net">Rick: I
also emailed the Pritchards from on July 16 and on July 18 I heard
back from Steven. I will include you on my response to them, I
just haven't gotten to it yet. I'll save all of that conversation
for between the 4 of us and then we can report back here anything
that might be particularly interesting or useful to the larger
audience.
<br>
<br>
On a separate note, thank you for all of your work over the years
maintaining LUGs and the various associated documentation! That's
a lot of thankless tasks and even though I've just barely
scratched the surface of what you have done, it is pretty cool to
have you share your stories and knowledge with us.
<br>
<br>
Derek: social, technical, advocacy = sure, that makes sense. I
assume that you have observed this about me already, but I do not
have a computer science degree, nor nearly as much experience with
technology as most of the NBLUG participants that I have met so
far. So I can't keep up on the technical conversations, but it is
still interesting to learn (sort of). I tend to be more interested
in our discussions on various differences between Linux distros
and package management systems and why some packages are capable
of being updated more frequently than others based on which
libraries a particular distro may ship with or whatever. I was
less interested in the conversation we had about Comcast internet
service and the various technical aspects of the problems you and
Matt discussed last time. But I faded out after a while and left,
and that's OK too.
<br>
<br>
Venue: I did contact Sonoma Clean Power about their conference
room on July 13 and I heard back July 21 - they are only willing
to let community organizations that share their primary focus of
combating the climate crisis to use their classroom.
<br>
<br>
*Allan: have you heard anything back from Sonic yet?
<br>
<br>
Advocacy: I am more interested in this aspect, in large part
because I can't contribute much to the technical development of
open source software. Part of my advocacy work involves more
communication about open source software, even if just to the
NBLUG list. Even if we doubled attendance at the monthly meetings
(to the mighty number of 15!), we would still only have a small
fraction of the people on the NBLUG talk/announce email lists
(236/454 people). So at this point, it feels a bit like inside
sales, rather than the community organization equivalent of cold
calling - tabling at events. I am also interested in referring
people that are interested in contributing to other open source
projects via NBLUG. That is why I try to post links to other
projects I have heard of or interacted with. With Derek's
encouragement, I recently switched the OS on my OnePlus 6T phone
to LineageOS (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lineageos.org/">https://lineageos.org/</a>) from the stock/T-Mobile
version of OnePlus' Oxygen OS. That was quite a big project for
me! I also decided to go without the Google Play store and will
hopefully be able to delete my rarely used Google account in the
coming months. That would be an example of expanding the use of
open source software within our own membership. As far as
attracting new members or new users of Linux, I would love to have
some referrals to helpful websites for newbies. I usually refer
people to Distrowatch (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://distrowatch.com/">https://distrowatch.com/</a>), if they are
already interested in Linux, but not currently using it. There are
far more people that use Apple/Microsoft/Google OS software that
don't even know what open source software is. For them I usually
start with the Wikipedia page
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software</a>).
<br>
<br>
Dues: I totally agree that it doesn't make sense for NBLUG to
incorporate as a nonprofit or collect dues/donations, unless there
was a very specific goal in mind. My points about organizational
structure and membership dues were more related to my "discovery"
that there is no larger national/international LUG that NBLUG is a
part of. I have given the example of the NBEAA
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://nbeaa.org/">https://nbeaa.org/</a>) and their relationship to the national EVA
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.myeva.org/">https://www.myeva.org/</a>) many times. Not all of the people on
NBEAA's Google Groups list are members of the EVA, but for those
that are, I believe that the national organization reimburses the
local chapter for some % of the dues from the local members. The
national organization also provides the 501c3 nonprofit status to
its local, affiliated chapters (as long as they follow some basic
rules/bylaws) and coordinates the local chapters bank accounts.
That is my understanding of the situation. IF there were a similar
national/international organization of LUGs, then I would highly
encourage NBLUG to consider joining/affiliating. Since that
doesn't currently exist, it is a non-issue for now. And it would
take months or years to get something like that off the ground,
even if I gave my notice on Monday and turned that into a full
time project affiliated with an existing organization in the
Linux/open source space (very unlikely to happen). My larger point
was that having a national/international organization of LUGs
seems like a really big untapped opportunity to increase the
interest in Linux & open source software on the
community/individual level.
<br>
<br>
Hope everyone had a good workweek!
<br>
<br>
Brad
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">------------------------------
<br>
<br>
Message: 3
<br>
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2022 11:52:59 -0700
<br>
From: "Derek B. Noonburg"<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:derekn@foolabs.com"><derekn@foolabs.com></a>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:To:talk@nblug.org">To:talk@nblug.org</a>
<br>
Subject: Re: [NBLUG/talk] NBLUG participants
<br>
Message-ID: <20220719115259.25ddde1d@numbat>
<br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
<br>
<br>
I think of NBLUG as having three overlapping functions: social,
<br>
technical, and advocacy. (Rick's HOWTO phrases things a little
<br>
differently, but I think we're close enough.) We've been doing
pretty
<br>
much 100% social since we started meeting again at Flagship.
<br>
<br>
On the technical side, we used to have some sort of talk at
almost everysort of
<br>
meeting. I'd really like to get back to doing that, even if
it's
<br>
something like every second or third meeting to start. But we
need to
<br>
find a venue before that can happen.
<br>
<br>
As for advocacy, I know NBLUG used to do installfests, but I
don't
<br>
think there's much demand for that anymore. I'm open to
suggestions
<br>
here.
<br>
<br>
I don't see us trying to collect dues or actively soliciting
donations.
<br>
I think that would add a layer of bureaucracy that no one really
wants
<br>
to deal with.
<br>
<br>
From my point of view, the priority right now should be to find
an
<br>
alternate meeting location -- one that allows us to do
presentations.
<br>
(It would also be nice to have an indoor venue before winter).
<br>
<br>
- Derek
<br>
<br>
<br>
On Sun, 17 Jul 2022 08:07:49 -0700
<br>
Brad Morrison<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:bradmorrison@sonic.net"><bradmorrison@sonic.net></a> wrote:
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Hey Frank,
<br>
<br>
Thanks for providing the exact numbers! I didn't realize that
there
<br>
are so many people on the talk (236) and announce (454) email
lists -
<br>
that's a lot!
<br>
<br>
For comparison to the North Bay Electric Auto Association
(NBEAA -
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://nbeaa.org/">https://nbeaa.org/</a>), NBEAA only has about 151 people on their
largest
<br>
Google Group email list, but they regularly get about double
the
<br>
number of participants at their monthly Zoom meetings (about
14-16)
<br>
compared to the number of people that we can get to show up to
Spring
<br>
Thai/Flagship Taproom's outdoor tables in Cotati (about 6-8).
Just
<br>
for comparison's sake, the NBEAA has about $6280 in their bank
<br>
account (mostly dues reimbursements from their "parent"
nonprofit
<br>
organization the Electric Vehicle Association -
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.myeva.org/">https://www.myeva.org/</a>) vs. NBLUG's about $140 in the cash
box.
<br>
<br>
If anyone has any suggestions or feedback about how we could
get more
<br>
people involved in NBLUG or more people on the email list that
want
<br>
to show up to the monthly meetings or even just more sharing
via the
<br>
IRC channel or this talk email list, feel free to let us/me
know. My
<br>
main priority for NBLUG/the larger Linux & open source
ecosystem is
<br>
to get more people involved (whether they are users or
developers or
<br>
whatever). That springs from my hunch that more users equates
to more
<br>
interest/activity which leads to more donations/funds to pay
more
<br>
developers to grow the capabilities of open source software in
the
<br>
eternal competition with closed/proprietary/corporate software
&
<br>
systems.
<br>
<br>
Thanks,
<br>
<br>
Brad
<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
_______________________________________________
<br>
talk mailing list
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:talk@nblug.org">talk@nblug.org</a>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://nblug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk">https://nblug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk</a>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
</body>
</html>