Greater Lansing Linux User Group

Saturday's ConCom and Board meetings were certainly interesting and productive. Ate up my Saturday from leaving Lansing around 8am, to getting back around 9pm. Operational notes will go to the mailing list where they apply, even if they're repeated from here. This is pretty much my overall notekeeping.

ConCom meeting went from 10 to a bit past noon. Very open, loosely structured, but enough people focused that things didn't wander too far off topic. The biggest thing that affects us is that since the hotel has events scheduled till mid-afternoon on Friday, most of the function rooms won't even START to be set up (tables, etc) till around 3pm. We're looking at 5pm-6pm before we can start moving things into Maple A. I told them 3-4 hours of setup, from previous experience, and that we weren't really all that in need of prioritizing; so we'll be set up 5th or so (yes, that would be LAST of the room sets that are set up on Friday afternoon). I'll find out on the mailing list and at the meeting, if this is gonna be a problem. :)

So, otherwise, things were fine. Got asked about using lounge space as classroom space, got the idea clarified, and between Aaron Thul and I, explained why having inexperienced presenters try to give impromptu 'interactive classes' instead of demonstrations was a BadIdea(tm). But basically said 'Sure, classroom use is fine, as long as it's scheduled and as long as you don't try to take up all our seats!'

Talked a bit with the MP Con people, and their computer support. Apparently they'll be bringing 6 systems loaded with winGames for time rental in their room. Convinced them that $5 an hour was a good price for that, have some contact info with them too. This is the first time they've been not the entirety of the event, so, it'll be new for them. They expected to be able to be shut down by like, early morning Sunday...noon final clean up...I suggested to them that they miiiight run a little later this year, given the nature of the crowd. They'll also be digging up some choice swag from various sources, and I've suggested that we can provide an overflow space for free (as in beer) things. :)

After a quick foraging for food, and a chat with someone who felt like he wanted to be the Bill Gates of Linux game distribution (ask me if you're interested), we had the 1pm walkabout the Hotel. Function rooms seem a bit small, but then again, I've been doing larger cons for the past while. BIG surprise when I hit Maple A. It's nothing like the layout I've got here on the site. The 'top' of my map is the entrance, add in two 'closets' and three more doors, two of which lead to the service halls. Means I have to reorient the whole thing, regroup, and amazingly enough, come out looking a lot like the FIRST sketch, drawn at the meeting. I'll share the results once Jer gets them redone in Visio.

After the walkthrough, pretty much everyone left before the Board meeting started. I stuck around to see how they were doing on the administrative front. Not too badly; apparently, this board is the first one in a long time that's actually paying attention to the corporate well-being of the con, which bodes well for the future. Details? Heh, ask me in person; I haven't seen the minutes yet, so I'm not sure exactly how much is 'official' and how much isn't. :)

All in all, I was satisfied and occasionally impressed by the group that's running things, and the larger group supporting them.