[clug] The harsh realities of CLUG

[steve jenkin]

Michael Still wrote on 19/05/10 10:07 AM:
> Paul Wayper wrote:
> 
>> Any other thoughts on ways we can improve the CLUG group and make it more
>> accessible to people are welcome!
> 
> I was thinking about this more on the bus this morning, and its time for
> an old man rant.
> 
> I'd like to see more of a focus on fundamentals. It seems to me that a
> lot of the people I meet don't have a very good grasp of the basics, and
> that there is therefore a gap that needs to be filled there.

FWIW.

I've had more than one request from people I've visited to help for
"How do I learn about this stuff" or "What book can I buy".

I can't suggest anything nor send them anywhere for 'the basics'.
Leaves them lost and struggling, which I don't like doing.
[It's also a poor use of my time, 1:1 teaching of basics without a
structured course or drills.]

I learnt a lot from the CAUUG Summer Conference Tutorials and greatly
miss them.

We have the people, knowledge and the venue to regularly run 1-day
tutorials.
What we don't have is a structure to collect money and pay organisers,
tutors and for rooms/facilities etc.

More importantly, CAUUG ended up with a decent surplus from it's Summer
Conferences. What's CLUG going to do if that's repeated?

There's AUUG/CAUUG-NG been created as a loose collective like CLUG.
I.e. there's no formal structure with a bank account and cheque book.
[and indemnity insurance].  Might Linux Australia do this?

If anyone's interested, we could do something...
A warning, beforehand the organisers need to define 'success'.
During a CAUUG revival phase we were getting 20-30 ppl along which I
thought a good start, but others found very disappointing and it all
stopped.

I think tutorials for 4-5 people are worth running, if the rooms paid
for and the tutor gets something. YMMV.


> Its nice to have a talk about arduino, or elastic gronk 3.0, but I'd
> also like to see talks about how file systems work, or rsync, or HTTP,
> or what's new in HTML5, or the protocols used in 3G networks or stuff
> like that. I think it would be interesting, as well as making me a
> better human to spend more time thinking about basics.
> 
> Mikal


-- 
Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist.
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA

sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin