[conspire] I get mail (college LUGs)

[Rick Moen]

----- Forwarded message from rohit kumar <gnurohit at gmail.com> -----

Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 01:16:57 +0530
From: rohit kumar <gnurohit at gmail.com>
Reply-To: rohit kumar <gnurohit at gmail.com>
To: rick at linuxmafia.com
Subject: TLDP,User group-howto india-lug's link update

Greetings there,
i was going thru your wonderful article at
tldp.org(http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO.html)
i found it really informative.

<THE LINK UPDATE>
page: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO-3.html
on this page the second-last link in section 3.1 that points to indian
lugs has probably changed.
the new link is: http://www.linuxforu.com/ShowLugs.php
so i hope you test this link and update accordingly.
</THE LINK UPDATE>

Actually me and my friends are planning to start a lug specifically
for our college campus. the reason is we have about zero linux
awareness at our college.
we have a local linux group at our city(delhi) which is really
alive.(http://linux-delhi.org)
it would be nice if you could share experiences of what to expect
while setting up a college specefic lug.
basically we'll be stressing on coding/advocacy/install-fests.

looking forward to hear from you,
regards,
rohit.


-- 
http://www.geocities.com/rohitsz2
Namaste: I honour the spirit in you which is also in me.
AUM: Action..Utterness..Mind

----- End forwarded message -----
----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 12:16:55 -0700
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: rohit kumar <gnurohit at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: TLDP,User group-howto india-lug's link update

Quoting rohit kumar (gnurohit at gmail.com):

> Greetings there,
> i was going thru your wonderful article at
> tldp.org(http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO.html)
> i found it really informative.

Hi, Rohit.  Thank you for the kind words.

> <THE LINK UPDATE>
> page: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO-3.html
> on this page the second-last link in section 3.1 that points to indian
> lugs has probably changed.
> the new link is: http://www.linuxforu.com/ShowLugs.php
> so i hope you test this link and update accordingly.
> </THE LINK UPDATE>

I will fix that in the next update.

> Actually me and my friends are planning to start a lug specifically
> for our college campus. the reason is we have about zero linux
> awareness at our college.
> we have a local linux group at our city(delhi) which is really
> alive.(http://linux-delhi.org)
> it would be nice if you could share experiences of what to expect
> while setting up a college specefic lug.
> basically we'll be stressing on coding/advocacy/install-fests.

The one (very small) words of wisdom I will pass on is that, judging by
experience with college-specific LUGs in the USA and Canada, there are
two major challenges such LUGs typically face, and they are
interrelated:

o  Accreditation:  Typically, college student organisations must
periodically fill out some significant paperwork, and prove that they
have met some organisational requirements, in order to qualify for
funding and access to campus/college resources (e.g., meeting space,
office space, machines, IP addresses, listing among the official student
groups, free advertising in the student newspaper).  It is very common
for this paperwork to be required once per year, at the beginning of the
fall term, and for groups that miss that deadline or fail to meet all
the requirements to have severe disadvantages.

o  Continuity of leadership and of member contact information:  I've
seen two college LUGs dissolve because it's leadership were heading
towards graduation, kept deferring the work of arranging an orderly
transition, and then had to give up doing any LUG work because final
examinations were more important.  Once the end of the school term
arrives, everyone leaves for summer break, and nothing can be organised
even retroactively.  Later, the fall term starts, but none of the LUG
members can even get in contact with each other, because most members
will have new residences and new contact information, not known to other
members.  If (as is often the case) the prior leadership have left
school because of graduation or some other reason, new leadership, if
any, will have a difficult time reassembling the group.  They may, among
other things, miss the deadline for accreditation.

The cure for these ailments is to anticipate the continuity problem
_long_ before final examinations, arrange in advance the new officers
for the following term, have long-term documented procedures in place to
perform periodic accreditation filings, and have robust mechanisms in
place to get back into contact when the next school year begins.  Doing
this requires overcoming the tendency to procrastinate and to deal with
problems only when they reach crisis proportions.

One LUG ("CalLUG" at University of California at Berkeley) planned to
coordinate all of its continuity efforts during the summer break via the
group's Web/ssh/mail server.  Unfortunately for them, the machine
suffered a minor hardware failure early in the summer break, and went
offline.  This failure broke the only means of contact among the
members:  They had not anticipated the problem and arranged for any "out
of band" means of communication -- and, because they'd all moved out of
the dormitories, none of their telephone numbers and postal addresses
for each other were valid.  The only persons authorised with the
university for key access to the server room had been graduated and 
(apparently) didn't become aware of the server failure.  

So, the LUG could not operate during the summer at all, and a few
belated attempts (on the part of would-be successor officers) to revive
the LUG as the fall semester began were unsuccessful.  The LUG no longer
exists.

----- End forwarded message -----