ubuntu-us-wisconsin team mailing list archive

[Simon Quigley <tsimonq2@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Good evening,

On 04/30/16 22:36, Ian Weisser wrote:

<snip />

> This team was created in 2007. I've been a member since 2008.

Just out of curiosity, how long have you been an Ubuntu member?

(discussion for another day ;) )

> The WI LoCo has always faced three big challenges:

Have these been pointed out before? If the challenges are apparent, why
haven't we solved them? :)

> 1) Spacial: Members are widely scattered - there seems no strong core
> of LoCo members in Milwaukee nor Madison nor any other WI community.

Right now we should take action because we have a good amount of people
in Madison. Although I agree and I see your point, a recent thread
proved otherwise. :)

> 2) Temporal: Members expire and leave instead of sticking around. When
> new members appear in, say, Rhinelander, old members in that area have
> vanished. Older members tend to drift away into new interests or local
> LUGs instead of sticking around to provide continuity and resources.

I only saw this once with an Ubuntu member just leaving for Debian.
While I won't mention his name and I haven't been here for that long,
this point hasn't been overly noticeable to me. I agree having some core
people is essential to the team working efficiently.

> 3) Goals: The LoCo has never has a set of goals that members were very
> interested in. Most new members seem to be looking for a welcoming
> social community more than evangelizing Ubuntu. A few new members have
> had specific projects in mind.

What do you have in mind?

> The three challenges support each other, creating a lot of inertia to
> overcome.

I can see how that would be a problem.

> When I look at the big, popular LoCos (Vancouver, Paris, California), I
> see a small core of long-term members who enjoy the social contact of
> the events and mostly live close to one (or two) major locations. 

Yep, that's something that we need to keep in mind. The people who have
been around for the longest are mostly scattered. Mike Putnam seems to
have been around for a long time, and he lives in the same general area,
but besides Madison, that's pretty much it.

> That's my view of the WI LoCo challenges that cause a lack of activity.
> What do you see?

You hit the nail right on the head. This is pretty much it. :)

-- 
Simon Quigley
tsimonq2@xxxxxxxxxx
tsimonq2 on Freenode