WLUG Meeting Minutes
23 February 2006

Meeting opened at 7:49pm.

Present: LindsayDruett, CraigBox, IanMcDonald, MatthiasDallmeier, PerryLorier, GianPerrone, DavidHallett

1. Minutes from previous meeting

Motion: that the minutes are a true and accurate record of the previous meeting.

Moved: IanMcDonald
Seconded: MatthiasDallmeier

Motion passed

2. Matters arising

We have chosen the room TW.2.07 for our next meeting. If it's well received we will attempt to book it for the remainder of the year. Ian has received no answer about sponsorship from the CS department and will follow this up.

This room has a data projector but using it is not free. We will continue to provide our own.

CRCnet need to speak to Graham Castle from ITS about LAN access to the room.

The SSL certificate for secure.wlug.org.nz has been renewed.

Ian is to chase up Orcon regarding payment for the www.wlug.org.nz domain, transferring it to annual billing, preferably by direct debit. We are happy to support Orcon, who sponsor us by hosting Hoiho.

3. Correspondence

An ICT survey was sent to us by the 20/20 Communication Trust, which was filled out by the secretary and returned.

4. Treasurer's report

Our financial statements have been transferred and seem complete. We are down on subscriptions from last year but most of the extra were picked up at the installfest, and we expect this trend to continue.

5. Report: Google Ads

MattBrown presented a report informing us that Google AdSense had been installed on the wiki, and that initial feedback had been positive. He will continue to monitor the situation, adjusting the advertising as appropriate. Initial projections suggest that advertising revenue could match subscription revenue after a year.

Matt is currently working on fixing the wiki issues under IE.

6. Request: Keysigning

We were asked to consider having a regular GPG key signing. We feel that there is a lot of explaining to do about why GPG keys are a good thing, and to do this at a regular meeting would detract from the people who aren't interested or already know how the process exists.

We will however encourage people that want to have their GPG keys signed to bring fingerprints and ID along to meetings, so that they can join the web of trust.

Running a keysigning at the installfest would be an excellent idea, and it will go onto the list of things to do at the installfest this year.

7. Request: Performance review

After a quiet period for the LUG, we were asked by a member to muse on the seeming stop of activity after the change of the committee.

We have tentative meeting topics planned from now through May and a new meeting venue, so we feel we are on track for delivering good meetings throughout the year. We are committed to having meetings planned two months out, and each committee member has been asked to follow up for a lead for a meeting presenter.

For the quiet period over Christmas, we discussed options for the BBQ last meeting, where we suggested we should hold it earlier in December, and attempt to get a higher turnout, and at that point, make sure we always have a January meeting planned in advance.

It was also suggested that over quiet periods that we use the mailing list more as a community builder; perhaps by encouraging people to post useful links/resources, or having a wiki drive. An idea presented was to have a "cool wall" of URLs on the wiki, which are summarised weekly to the mailing list. It might like to be the job of a member to publish such a digest?

As for advocacy and promotional events, we have several ideas which are referred to in the next item.

8. Advocacy events (was: Installfest planning)

Lots of ideas were floated about events we would like to run this year:

Public promotional days

• Investigate space in a shopping mall for non-profits
• Have PCs running demos (desktop, games, business apps, eye candy etc)
• Have giveaways (penguin stickers, Kia Ora/OpenCD, Ubuntu CDs etc)

This event should be held soon before the installfest.

Installfest/Linux Expo

• When Ubuntu Dapper CDs are available (.: later than early May)
• More focus on demonstrations/presentations/seminars than previously
• Possibly somewhere closer to town/more "expo" like than Crawshaw

Business event

• held in suits, in a conference room
• well advertised (Chamber of Commerce, Computerworld, newspaper advertising etc)
• target small business (cost saving, no lock in, etc)
• work with local Linux consultants, promote for sponsorship
• approach commercial Linux vendors for sponsorship/advertising
• short presentations from LUG members on a range of topics

University event

• Try and build momentum with university students to have the WLUG run something on Clubs Day next year (perhaps in association with the ACM chapter, or aim to push for establishing a Computer Club on campus). No point in doing much else during O-Week.
• Meetings targeted to programmers/university students need a rethink; perhaps contact the Uni lecturers for papers taught on Linux, and see what they recommend

For all events

• We should get a WLUG banner/signage made up; Ian initially to investigate with his wife Jayne, who works at Admark (Craig will co-ordinate if required)
• We should be prepared to spend money promoting the LUG and Linux (CDs. handouts, printing etc), but expect some events to cover their own costs through sponsorship and subscriptions

9. General business

Next committee meeting, 16th March; 18 Hinton Ave.

Meeting closed at 9.05pm.

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