[ubuntu-us-mi] MUG meeting sponsorship

[Greg Grossmeier]

Hello there Team!

I have a bit of a proposal for everyone.

[tl;dr: We're going to sponsor a MUG meeting! Help us raise money by 
donating to greg at grossmeier.net on Paypal!]


Background / About MUG
----------------------

As many of you may know, one of the best linux related groups in Michigan 
is MUG, or Michigan!/usr/group (http://www.mug.org). They hold monthly 
meetings in Southfield, Michigan. Many Ubuntu LoCo team members have been 
attending MUG meetings for a long time and I highly recommend checking 
them out if you have a chance. In fact their next meeting is tomorrow(!) 
night, March 8th, where our own Craig Maloney (snapl on IRC) will be 
presenting on how to create a podcast. As many of you know, Craig and 
Rick Harding are the co-hosts of the awesome Lococast podcast 
(http://lococast.net). And the Ubuntu Michigan LoCo/MUG intermingling 
doesn't stop there. Many other LoCo members have presented in the past 
include Jorge Castro, Rick, and myself.

MUG also brings in amazing out of town speakers and can do that because 
they help pay the travel costs as much as possible. The room they use for 
the meetings is also something they have to pay for each time. Thus, to 
put on such great events with such great content requires some money. 
This is why they have yearly membership dues of $35. I know that some 
LoCo members are also paying MUG members.


The Proposal
------------

MUG has also recently started a new program where a business or group can 
sponsor a meeting:
http://www.mug.org/twiki/bin/view/Mugwiki/CorpSponsorship

Basically, what this means is that we could, as a group, raise the $150 
to sponsor a MUG meeting where we could then have an Ubuntu-themed 
meeting and any member of the Michigan LoCo will be considered a full 
member for 2011.

Really, the best part is contributing to the success of MUG and having an 
Ubuntu-themed MUG meeting.

At last night's IRC meeting it was officially decided that we will 
participate as a LoCo and sponsor a MUG meeting. This is where *YOU* come 
in.


The How
-------

Lets raise that required $150 as fast as we can! I will be accepting 
donations to my Paypal account (greg at grossmeier.net). When we hit $150 
I'll send a note to this mailing list and let the MUG Board know.

Also, in case anyone has any reservations about giving money to me to 
then give to MUG, I will log into my Paypal account for any LoCo member 
who attends a MUG meeting and show the donation information.

The next part is the best: Our sponsored meeting.


Our Meeting
-----------

Craig, who is on the MUG Board, is looking into finding the best 
available meeting for us to use as an Ubuntu-themed/LoCo-Sponsored 
meeting. Since it'll be Ubuntu-themed we should have one or two great 
Ubuntu-related talks. These can be anything from a how-to to a case study 
of your use of Ubuntu in some really interesting situation (run 1000 
Ubuntu servers in a cluster? Tell us about it!).

Let me or the list know if you have a topic that you would like to 
present!


Questions?
----------

Let me know if you have any questions about this fundraiser or MUG in 
general.

Thanks!

Greg

-- 
|       Greg Grossmeier |
| http://grossmeier.net |