SPUG: Future of SPUG?

[Andrew Sweger]

On Thu, 20 Oct 2005, Tim Maher wrote:

> I'm glad Andy was willing to take on the SPUGsponsibility, during
> a difficult time when we didn't even have a regular meeting
> space. But maybe Andy's shoulders are getting tired now, and
> would like some help carrying the load?

Yep, sore shoulders. And I'm working full++ time again.

I love how Tim can light a fire with a few sparks.

I like several of the ideas that are circulating now. I can't think of a
reason why a more distributed user group model would not work. I really
like the business hours meeting idea (now that I'm working 60+ hours a
week) and the place-of-business meetings. Combined with Mike Schuh's call
for tutors and my wish for an apprenticeship model for making new Perl
masters, I could really get into it.

I would like to offer to host small weekly gatherings in my new office
(two couches, 64 square feet of whiteboard, dogs to play with, free
drinks, plenty of bandwidth), but despite it being a very informal
environment (it's a warehouse), there's still a liability concern I
haven't worked around yet.

If there are sufficient murmerings *for* a more official structure in
SPUG, I will setup a schedule for elections (as nominal dictator) to form
a charter and board of directors. HOWEVER, my memory tells me the
murmerings *against* were ahead 4-to-1. Additionally, I've seen formal
structures bring down a couple otherwise worthy organizations (wrong
structure, wrong people, wrong time? I don't know and won't say).

As to the Wiki, a couple folks did a bang up job porting information over
to mediawiki.seattleperl.org. I'm going to switch it in as the official
Wiki soon and move the old one somewhere else (but still available).

-- 
Andrew B. Sweger           |  P.O. Box 33147
President                  |  Seattle WA 98133
Seattle Perl Users Group   |  (206) 219-7119
andrew{at}seattleperl.org  |  http://seattleperl.org/