[kwlug-disc] I miss KWLUG so badly!

[Paul Nijjar]

We miss you too! I do, anyways.

It sounds to me as if VanLUG is in trouble, but not critically so. Do
you have any inclination/energy to help revive it? You could be the
VanLUG that you want to see in the world. 

KWLUG went through a similar process where things were still happening
but the organizers were losing enthusiasm, and then an energetic young
man by the name of Richard Weait came in and revitalized the place
with his energy. That kept KWLUG going for at least a decade longer
than it would otherwise have, even though Richard has since moved on.

Here are some easy wins, based upon looking at the website and what
you have told us:

- You could work with the website maintainer and make some small
  fixes. The front page could show upcoming meetings rather than the
  wall of text that is there now.  You could figure out what the
  proper meeting day is and then make sure the website reflects that
  information. You could set up some contact mechanisms that work,
  even if they are just ineffectively obfuscated email addresses
  ("Contact us at vanlug at gmail dot com") and not real webforms.

- You have done all kinds of interesting things, and you gave a talk
  with Bob Jonkman on some of them. You could revive that talk or
  offer to give a different one, the same way you were planning on
  speaking with KWLUG.

- There is a watcamp-style listing of tech events for Vancouver at
  http://startupnorth.ca/events/vancouver-events/ . I see that the
  last VanLUG meeting was not on that. It might be possible to get
  future VanLUG meetings there (or maybe you can use that calendar to
  find a less dysfunctional community). 

- After putting your money where your mouth is by giving a talk, you
  could get some of the members to commit to giving talks in future
  months, thus ensuring that there are regular meetings happening. One
  of the reasons KWLUG still exists is because we do not take months
  off. As soon as you start skipping meetings you are in trouble.

There are some things that are less easy wins. Losing a mailing list
is traumatic; if we lost kwlug-announce and its subscription base then
KWLUG would likely be hosed. Dealing with membership fees and the
restrictions of a nonprofit structure is a hassle, which is why I have
resisted it (and probably hurt KWLUG in the process).

The existing website is not fantastic but it is functional enough.
People want to integrate all kinds of functionality into their
websites, but I have come to believe that splitting this
functionality can be a good idea. kwlug.org is now mostly an
announcement site. If we had to deal with memberships and fees and
such, then my preferred solution would be for the treasurer to have a
spreadsheet or a GnuCash setup or something rather than trying to
integrate some e-commerce solution into the main website. But these
things are out of your hands as a newbie. 

What you do have to offer is a set of fresh eyes and (potentially)
some energy. Both of these things are invaluable to keeping user
groups alive.

You may well get resistance to change from the old guard. That's okay.
Sunny persistence goes a long way. Once people start trusting you and
believing that you are in this for the long haul (or the medium haul)
they will trust you more.

Of course, if VanLUG is not worth your time or energy then you should
not feel obligated to revive it. But it seems that the opportunity is
there if you want to take it on.

- Paul



On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 07:48:27PM -0800, Ronald Barnes wrote:
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I just had to say how much I'm missing KWLUG.
> 
> The organizational skills by Paul, Andrew, and everyone are sorely missed in
> Vancouver.
> 
> 
> /begin rant
> 
> Since arriving back in Vancouver in July, there has been *one* presentation
> at VanLUG - a display of BSD file system hierarchy.
> 
> On average, 3-4 regulars attend and a couple stragglers.  There are *nine*
> Board of Director members though.
> 
> 
> 
> The web site states:
> 
> >As a registered non-profit society in British Columbia, VanLUG is
> >governed by a volunteer Board of Directors. Without its executive,
> >the VanLUG community would be quite disfunctional [sic].
> 
> Yet the president admitted on the recently restarted mailing list:
> 
> >Although we've been working on our website for *years*, we have yet to
> >get the back-end to function properly. We can't input data manually,
> >we can't get proper reports out, we can't transfer funds into our
> >bank account. MySQL currently tells us that VanLUG has three
> >members.
> 
> It's unfathomable that a LUG would spend "years" on a simple web site and
> still be non-functioning.
> 
> 
> They want $20 per year for membership.
> 
> 
> * Their web site listed monthly meetings on the 2nd monday of each month,
> and on another page, on the 3rd monday of each month.
> * The mailing list was out-sourced and they lost all data.
> * Their Twitter account wasn't even registered.
> * The "Contact Us at the form below" ... didn't actually have a form to
> contact them at.
> * etc ad nauseam
> 
> /end rant
> 
> Gawd, I miss KWLUG!
> 
> 
> r b
> 
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> kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
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