[ubuntu-za] A question for the nominees if I may ?

[David Rubin]

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 3:30 PM, Morgan Collett <morgan at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Hilton Gibson <hilton.gibson at gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 15:11
> Subject: A question for the nominees if I may ?
> To: ubuntu-za-owner at lists.ubuntu.com
>
>
> What are your ideas or strategy for starting LoCo's per major town in
> South Africa ?
> In other words, increasing community membership numbers ?
>
> Please reply to the list ?

This is a very good question!

Although I like the idea of having LoCo's per town I feel with the
very small percentage of computer users and more importantly Linux
users this segregation could be less beneficial then helpful. I also
like that ubuntu-za is the over all group with each major (or minor
town) having LoCo events. Events being the target not on groups or
teams.

Bloemfontein with the help of Johan Mynhardt last year had their first
release party [1]. Stellenbosch will be having their first official
release party this year thanks to you. (Hilton Gibson). [2]

This task is not by any means a single person job nor will it be a
single persons idea's I feel what will work for one area of the
country will not work for the others. I am from Cape Town and my ideas
of what works might and probably wont work in JHB or on a Farm some
where but all those places are valid places for ubuntu promotion.

I see this Loco Lead role as being a motivator and encourager for the
community and for the people in each centre and to deal with the grunt
work like write ups and irc meetings with other loco leads. The task
of incorporating  LUGs and other people falls on each and every single
member of ubuntu-za not just the leadership.

This has been proved countless times in most things we as a team do it
often isn't the leadership that runs the even but the team members.

I am not sure approaching the LUGS would help our numbers grow since
most of the lug members are already part of ubuntu-za or at least the
ubuntu/debian users are or am I pretty sure they know about it. Not
that I feel huge numbers of inactive people is where we want to go any
way.

We already have quite a lot of interaction between ubuntu-za and Clug
and Glug as for the smaller ones I am not 100% sure at present. I have
found at least with the new people that I have that newbie Linux users
or friends/family of Linux users tend to be more willing and active to
join ubuntu-za because of the "free support". Which is thanks to every
one on our lists and not just leadership. Thanks Guys :)

I think we need to target more closely people that could benefit from
Ubuntu. I.e friends and family who we are willing to actively help and
support because changing an OS is by no means and easy task. There is
no way a user will even attempt to try out Ubuntu if they don't know
for sure that is the is 1) an amazing gain from it, and 2) some one
will help when stuff breaks. Because chances are when you try some
like a new OS things wont be done exactly the way you were used to.

I haven't had a chance to update my wiki yet sorry. My laptop hard
drive has kinda gone bye bye. but I fully intend on completing my
current wiki page on ubuntu.com instead of creating a new  page [3] is
this becomes an issue I will ofcourse move the data onto our wiki.

Hope this answers a few questions you (Hilton Gibson) and raises far more.

I would also like to open up this question not just to the 3 people
that stand to be elected but the rest of you guys.

Thanks

David Rubin (Drubin)

[1] http://wiki.ubuntu-za.org/Jaunty_Release_Party/Bloemfontein
[2] http://wiki.ubuntu-za.org/Karmic_Release_Party/Stellenbosch
[3] http://wiki.ubuntu.com/drubin