[vox] New LUG starting; advice sought

[ME]

Nicole TWN said:
> Hi everyone
>
> Aerospace Corp, where I work, has lots of employee clubs.  There's a ski
> club and a scuba club and a ham radio club and... and now there's a LUG
> starting up!  Hurrah!  I've had such a blast in LUGOD that I plan to be
> active in this LUG, too.
>
> This new LUG will have it easy in some respects--we'll have a place to
> meet, for starters, and what with all the geeks around, I think we'll be
> able to find guest speakers.  What else will we need?  What separates a
> really good LUG from one that sputters and dies after meeting 2?

Good leadership that is inclusive with people who wish to share the
workload. A good leader of a LUG should:
* Accept blame when things fall apart
* Pass on thanks and rewards directly through to the people who provide
the work
* Delegate, delegate, delegate
* Encourage people from diverse arenas to join (this allow for more
contacts to increase chances to pool resources.)

As a LUG:
* Avoid redundancy in services based on proximity: the closer a resource
is that offers the same service, the less inclined you should be to
duplicate those services.
* Advertise, advertise, advertise
* Affirm the positive of events and actions of people
* Do not focus on the negative (do not do the blame-game. focus on
problems and resolution, not who is to blame for a problem)
* Encourage polite behavior on lists and otherwise
* Create rules only as problems come into existence.
* Create partnerships with other groups who have more resources- use
barter or exchanged favors to create cohesion and kinship with fellow
groups. (Includes parties, and sporting events like basketball, softball,
frisbee, etc.)
* Organize your events and do as little as possible to change the
days/times that your meetings take place

As a moderator:
* First, deal with problems in private.
* If private resolution fails, make the issue open for all, but do not
include private content. (Wait for a new public event that duplicates the
same warned behavior, and then reply to that on the list for others to see
the warning.)
* If public (peer) pressure does not resolve the problem, then remove the
person from the list/group.
* If they later return and the problems continue to persist without
resolution, ban them from the list.

As a board:
* Communicate, communicate, communicate.
* If you are president, avoid making all of the decisions. Defer as many
answers / decisions to the next board meeting. Encourage discussion. (This
way people are actually sharing the wheel in the steering of the group
*and* the work can also be shared -- work is often associated with the
implementation of any decision.
* Responsibility should *always* follow control. If someone has control of
something, they are responsible for it.
* Do not give responsibility of a resource to someone when they do not
have control over that resource. (same as last, just stated in another
way.)
* _Always_ encourage new membership and people to attend meetings.
* Do as much as possible to frequently mix-up the membership of the board.
By shifting new people into the board, you decrease risk for elimination
of a LUG when 1 or 2 key members move away.

People in the group:
* Encourage people in the group to offer ideas.
* Ask group members about items they would like to hear about and also
then check to see if anyone know about the subject, or knows someone who
knows the subject who may be willing to speak on it.

In the meetings:
* Keep introductions and LUG talk before the speaker short.
  (We (NBLUG) have found it annoys our speakers and members when we spend
too much time at the beginning focusing on issues of running the LUG. We
have members who are elected by the group who deal with running the
group. Our board meetings are open to any members who wish to attend. In
this way, we are more of a Democratic Republic than a true Democracy. It
means specialization of members and permits us to focus our presentation
on content. (For example, our kernel talk went on for 2.5 hours in a
single meeting-- and that was *just* the presentation.)
* Hand out awards and give out kudos to praise members who have done well

It does not matter if you have disagreed with him or not, as the
information is valuable reguardless; Rick Moen has a "howto" on running a
LUG that is useful and informative. If you have had past disagreements
with him, put those feelings aside and look though it:

http://www.linuxmafia.com/~rick/essays/newlug.html

HTH,
-ME