Happy New Year everyone. With a new year always comes new opportunity.  The team has been quiet for some time now.  This, in my opinion is a shame. There are - from my view point a few reasons for this.  1.  The weekly meetings were for lack of a better word were useless.  We had the same people show up every week - basically a core group of 4-5 people.  2.  Tennessee, as I am sure everyone knows is a very large state with two time zones.  3.  No regional leadership.  It was proposed, and if I recall correctly approved at a meeting, that we have three primary operating areas - West Middle and East Tennessee. 4.  I can also honestly say that I have not been available as much as I could/should be.  I did have a conversation with another member, who wanted to take leadership. But, there has been no action on that part. So, I have a few ideas on how we can fix some of these problems and grow this group and in the end make the Tennessee LoCo great and Ubuntu stronger in Tennessee. 1.  Have "official" meetings monthly instead of weekly.  Weekly is too much for the amount of activity/participation we currently have.  If the need arises in the future we can increase the frequency of these meetings.  This is not to say the regional groups can not have meetings whenever they feel the need. 2.  I think we need to take more of the day to day conversation to the mailing list.  The irc channel is great, but I think we can see more activity in the mailing list.  I know that some workplaces will not allow people to use irc and we reach a broader audience with the mailing list - every member is supposed to be subscribed to it.  3.  Create recognized regional leaders.  At least one per region above - more than one would be good!  Within this, there should also be centralized oversight.  I am thinking leaders/admins, recording secretary, and others.  This oversight should be mirrored at the state level too. 4.  I plan on making more of an effort this year.  But I can't do it myself.  Basically I think/hope we can structure this team in a way that we rely on each other and build community, but we aren't relying on any one person specifically to meet our goals. 5.  Create regionally backed group projects.  Along with state wide activities.  Coordination between the regions to have multiple activities in multiple regional would be awesome.  This can be anything.  CD distribution, install-fests, meet-ups etc...  use your imagination - this can be really fun. 6.  More face to face activity regionally and state wide. 7. 8. 9... add your ideas here. One last note -  Congratulations to Matthew Craig - desertc - on becoming an Ubuntu member this past November! I look forward to hearing back from you all. Mike (tideline)