Re: meetings and time

[Walt Mankowski <waltman@pobox.com>]

On Thu, Jun 29, 2006 at 09:46:55PM -0400, Hans Dieter Pearcey wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 29, 2006 at 10:59:03AM -0400, Mark Jason Dominus wrote:
> > Would it be out of line to suggest that since Walt's studies don't
> > seem to leave him time to organize PM events, he should step down in
> > favor of someone else who does have time and will do it? 
> 
> I don't think it would be out of line to suggest that, but I am afraid
> that the reason no one else is stepping up is because they don't have
> the time either, as opposed to not wanting to step on Walt's toes.
> 
> (I would like to be proven wrong.)

Both are true.  For instance, I've given up trying to organize dinner
meetings after only 1 or 2 people showed up at the last few we had,
and because of what I perceived to be general apathy on the list
regarding dinner meetings.

It's also true, as Mark said, that I've been extremely busy.  We've
traditionally had our meetings on Monday nights, and I had Monday
night classes all three terms this past academic year.  Between
classes, school work, research, and my qualifying exams, I only had a
handful of free evenings on ANY night of the week between January and
2 weeks ago when the spring term ended at Drexel.

I have to admit it's sometimes tough to get motivated to organize
something that's going to have me out late another night when I'm
already not getting home until 10 two other nights of the week when I
have class.  On the other hand, as Dieter points out, people haven't
exactly been flooding my inbox begging to give talks.  We've had a
chronic shortage of speakers even before I got so busy with grad
school.

Occasionally I've run into people in the group and they've asked me
why we haven't been having any meetings lately.  After apologizing for
being busy, I say that we've had problems finding people to do talks,
and ask them if they'd like to do one themselves.  No one's ever said
yes.  Then I ask them if there's anything they'd like to hear a talk
about.  Again, silence.

I admit I'm not the greatest arm twister in the world, but we're not
going to have a tech meeting every month if it's only the same 2 or 3
people giving talks every time.

I'd be more than happy to hand over the leadership of the group to
someone else if they think they can do a better job.  We've talked
about having a meeting in a few weeks so that Geoff Young can practice
his OSCON talk.  Should we have an election that night?

Walt

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