On Sunday, March 1, 2015, Wesley Duffee-Braun <[email protected]> wrote:
> +1 to free solutions. > > However, as Amber said, if we are going to have expenses (which it appears > we already have wrt meetup and there could be more) I would see it as > appropriate to spread that cost around somehow. That does get potentially > complicated (is there a bank account? would one have to be setup? I gather > we have a treasurer position but no idea what the funds situation looks > like) but the extra work seems to be worth it to keep everything > transparent. > > Being a Richard Stallman fangirl, I'm all for keeping the group as democratic or even anarchic as possible, but this right here is our most compelling reason for pursuing a little formal organization. It will help us remain open and transparent in the end, especially considering we need to be able to handle resources beyond just a website. Almost every month we here rumours that Vandy is going to start charging us for parking, or that we might not be able to keep our meeting room, etc. There are other options for meeting places NLUG could pursue, but almost all of them require accepting sponsorship money. Many of them would also allow us to provide refreshments during meetings, if we could accept sponsorships. I'm not sure if we really want to expand what NLUG does, but if we wanted to start holding hack days or doing education outreach for students, etc., again we would need a functioning organization behind us. This can only help the viability and growth of the group. NLUG is the oldest user group in Nashville, it would be great if it could still show these kids how it's done for years to come. ;) Nearly every other user group in Nashville has encountered this same problem, and most of them have solved it in one of three ways, 1) benevolent dictatorship by a single sponsor, either an individual or a local company, 2) formal organization, such as their own non-profit (Nashville 2600 being a prime example, with a close historical relationship to NLUG), or 3) forming an "umbrella" relationship with a local non-profit who can accept and distribute funds on its behalf (TedXNashville does a lot of this, with varying degrees of success and oversight). Andrew has offered to be our benevolent dictator, but such an arrangement has its flaws. We could also pursue #2, and the membership seemed to express support of that initiative at the last election in May. It hasn't been pursued since, however. We could also try option #3, perhaps even through Nashville 2600, since as some of you may know they've recently reformed their Board, are cleaning up their bylaws, and have established a solid financial position. Andrew is a Board member, not to mention Dru Myers is still President and a member of NLUG. Our group has been a frequent contributor to PhreakNIC. An agreement might be pretty easy given the relationships. I'm just putting these ideas out for discussion, I'm not wholy committed to any of them. Amber Adams -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
