Patrick Useldinger wrote:
"Stell dir vor es ist Linuxfest, und keiner geht hin" (frei nach Bert
Brecht).
So - in how far is this different from the general Lilux club life?
I brought this up some time ago (Jan 30th, 2007), I made suggestions,
and I was essentially ignored. Only Serge Marelli tried to be
constructive about it. The two other comments I got were about the
format, completely ignoring the matter itself. You, Alain, were among
those. Thierry didn't react at all.
And now you are surprised? Come on, you're much smarter than that.
As long as the committee doesn't realize *they* are the problem nothing
will change. And only the committee can change things. It's not about
the date or the grill.
I'm still willing to help out, as soon as I have the impression that it
makes sense. At this point it simply doesn't.
After some reflection, I have decided to resign from my post as a
secretary. I felt that Linuxfest organization takes a lot of energy (at
least for me, maybe other people are maybe better at this), with very
little result. Over the course of the year, I did more _private_ Linux
installations (going home to people, or doing it at our weekly Friday
evening's meetings) than at our Fest! During the fest I gained a single
new customer (Stefano. Other customers were present, but these were
people which we already knew, like that guy from InfoLaden...), but
during the year, many more (about 6, without even counting those brought
in by Cedric an Pitt. And maybe I forgot some, and there were more than
6). So what is really the interest of organizing a Linuxfest for weeks,
it is that turns out to not be a bang, but merely a fizzle...?
I have thus come to the conclusion, that for me at least, organization
of the LiLux events are a huge drain on my personal energy, but with
very little result, very little thanks and much negative comments.
Thus, I hereby resign from my post as a secretary, effective at our next
meeting (end/middle of July, or maybe September if the July meeting is
too short), which we should declare to be an "Assemblée Générale
Extraordinaire" so that we can hold votes for my replacement.
People who have some genial ideas how to dramatically improve our club
activities are welcome to come forward and post their candidature as
secretary. I fully admit that organization and coordinating is not
exactly my strength, and that as a member of the existing committee I
might indeed be part of the problem. Sorry for that.
But don't panic: I'll still stay aboard as a (non-committee) member, I'm
still willing to help with purely technical questions, and I might still
help with technical tasks within any organization of an event that the
new committee will come up. It's only the top-level organization that I
prefer to get out of.
Moreover I plan to still stay in charge of LLL which is a success. The
boys (Cedric and Pitt) are doing a great task of marketing it to their
class mates and schools, with big success. The only drawback is that in
the meantime, our LLL is somewhat outdated, due to my lack of time to
work on it (... time that I invested in the preparation of the LinuxFest
indeed). However, Pitt and Cedric have done some great work taking over
large parts of it, and most work on our new Kubuntu-based LLL version
which will be ready in the next couple of weeks has been done by them.
Thanks alot Pitt and Cedric for your valuable help! Only a couple of
custom packages (webmin, userd, spam filter, ldap) are still missing,
and I plan to use the time freed by my resignation as the LiLux
secretary to provide these last missing parts. From what I can see, LLL
is a high return-on-invest activity, which Lilux and is events appeared
not to be (at least for me, in its current shape). LLL sites
(ens.org.lu, transfair, infoladen) are very interested in the product,
and come often with constructive feedback and request for new features!
So I take the decision to resign from my LiLux responsibilities, and
instead concentrate my efforts to areas where they will bear more
fruits. Not only does the LLL initiative seem to interest people, but it
is fun too! And the people who are helping with LLL (Cedric and Pitt)
are fun to work with!
I'm sorry to have go, but maybe a new committee will indeed be able to
turn LiLux around, and make it again into the dynamic and successful
organization it was meant to be. I wish them all my best. Maybe indeed
they will indeed succeed. Organization, coordination, managing,
motivating, animating people was never my strength, and so maybe a new
committee might indeed by able to solve our issues. In any case, I wish
them all the best! And if it does indeed turns out successful then, who
knows, maybe I'll get more involved in LiLux again. And if on the other
hand it flops too, so be it: in that case it frees everybody for
pursuits which are more productive to the cause, or to their private
wellbeing!
Don't worry, I will still stay on-board as a mere member (non-committee)
and continue come to our monthly meetings (maybe no longer to _all_ of
them though), occasionally do a presentation, or help with some specific
technical issues with event organization, should anybody have a
question. I also will keep my internal organization notes available
around for about a year at the disposal of whoever needs that info (task
lists, contact Rossi customer numbers, statistics of past drink
consumption where available etc.), whoever it will be. Also, I'm still
open to the occasional, fun, non-Linux activities that may come up: fun
evenings together, grill events, cinema, trips to concerts or elsewhere.
And if private people have specific questions about Linux, I'm still
available to help (if I know the answer, that is. Else I gladly refer to
somebody who might now it)
With my decision, I'm not trying to influence the other exiting
committee members. To each his own decision to stay or leave. If Pierre
also decides that it is too much for him to handle too, we may now have
an incentive of having to look for a "real" meeting room (as Pascal
suggests). But each existing committee member has to decide for himself
whether he stays, or prefers to leave his seat to fresh blood.
On a positive note: all people who were there (Pierre, Eric, Yvon,
Thierry, Laurent, Pierre, Cedric, Fernand, ...) did indeed a great job
helping _during_ the event! Thanks very much for your help, that one
aspect seemed to be working so much better this time that the previous
years. What I especially loved were people who were volunteering to come
for the post-Fest cleanup (i.e. the least fun part of it)! Many thanks!
It was only the help _before_ the fest (preparation) that was seriously
lacking. Only Pierre (preparing rooms, getting authorization from his
boss etc), Eric (free beer), Alex and me (general organization) were
seriously helping _before_ the fest. But that's not enough. It's too
much of a burden on just 4 people.
Please post your candidatures for secretary to the lilux-admin list. If
other existing committee members prefer to resign as well, please also
post the list, so that we can get replacement candidatures for these as
well. And I am sure, even if Pierre resigns, he too will still be
fairplay enough to keep the LGL's doors open to us, until a "real
meeting location" is found.
Thanks for your time, and best wishes for the future for the new committee!
Alain
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