[NBLUG/Announce] NBLUG State of the LUG 2017

[Allan Cecil]

Greetings,

As President of the North Bay Linux Users' Group I wanted to take an opportunity to get back to sending State of the LUG updates (I did not send a 2016 update).  The goal of this E-Mail is to update all members about our current status in all areas of importance and to encourage further discussion about the future of NBLUG in the Talk list.  Here are some TL;DR numerical highlights about the state of NBLUG as of 2017-04-20:

454 E-Mail addresses are subscribed to the NBLUG Announce list
259 E-Mail addresses are subscribed to the NBLUG Talk list
IRC activity in #nblug on Freenode remains strong
6 of 6 board seats are filled through November 2017
NBLUG as a non-profit now owns a 720p projector thanks to donations
$165.73 is in the NBLUG cashbox secured by our treasurer

Important information: Please contact us at speakers at nblug.org if you know of someone who would be willing to present on a Linux or open-source related topic.  NBLUG general meetings are consistently held on the 2nd Tuesday of every month at 7:00 in O'Reilly's Tarsier meeting room at 1005 Gravenstein HW N. in Sebastopol, CA past the metal statue and to the right.  O'Reilly (http://oreilly.com) additionally sponsors NBLUG by frequently providing raffle books (in both e-book and physical form) for attendees as well as a free book of of a speaker's choice if they request one. Sonic.net (http://sonic.net) sponsors NBLUG by hosting our racked http://nblug.org server in their Santa Rosa datacenter.  On behalf of the board, I would like to again publicly thank our sponsors for their continued support which enables us to operate without ongoing membership dues or donation drives.

NBLUG Board: The current board as elected during the November 2016 general meeting consists of:
Allan Cecil (President)
E. Frank Ball III (Vice-President)
Robert Thille (Scribe)
Matt Da Silva (Treasurer)
Tom Most (Board Member at Large)
Matt Smith (Board Member at Large)

Our next scheduled elections will be during the November 2017 meeting where all 6 1-year term seats will be open for nominations per our bylaws (http://nblug.org/bylaws/).

IRC channel: NBLUG has an IRC channel at #nblug on the Freenode network (http://chat.freenode.net) that now sees daily activity and has grown to exceed the level of activity on the talk mailing list.

Cash balance: The NBLUG cashbox currently contains $165.73 as last audited 2017-02-21 when the balance was confirmed by our Treasurer and holder of the cashbox, Matt Da Silva.  Last year we received a number of donations that allowed NBLUG (via our Vice President, Frank Ball) to buy a 720p DVI/HDMI projector and the current cashbox balance reflects what was left over after the purchase.  Thank you to everyone who donated to made this possible.
Because O'Reilly generously sponsors NBLUG by providing us with a room to meet in and Sonic.net provides hosting for our website our expenditures are effectively non-existent.  There are currently no expenditures the board can foresee in the near future and thus we are not currently seeking donations.

Additional opinion and analysis: I, Allan, feel that the evidence above points to a viable and stable user group that is gaining new members at about the same rate that past members move on.  Our best attendance happens when we have outside speakers and I will continue to work with the board to seek out speakers who can present on topics that would interest you, the members of NBLUG.  While the board actively pursues this goal independently, I feel the best resource we have is the connections that members of the group have.  Please let us know about potential speakers at speakers at nblug.org and we will promptly follow up with them.

I encourage everyone to share their thoughts about this State of the LUG 2017 update on the talk list and I look forward to a lively discussion.  Thanks,

Allan Cecil
President, North Bay Linux Users' Group

A.C.
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