Compsoc Exec Minutes (17/11/2006)

Present (Exec listed first)

Bruce Tinton (Bruce)
Andrew Wheat (Candle)
Frederick Emmott (Fred)
Laurence Hurst (Laurence)
Arun Prasannan (Polar)
David Buckley (Bucko)
Kim Tibbetts-Harlow (Kim)
Sean Connolly (Morlark)

Timothy Retout (Tim)
Daniel Watkins (Odd_bloke)
Richard Warburton (Mulletron)

Agenda

LUG
Changes to academic events
pub crawl
lack of organisation
lack of communication
lack of responsibility
lack of society confidence
lack of forward planning
Any other business

Joblist

LUG

For reference, both the LUG constitution and agreement with compsoc are available on the LUG’s website at http://www.wuglug.org.uk/. Additionally the terms `LUG’ and `GLUG’ are deemed to be interchangeable as desired.

The LUG’s constitution was generally agreed to be acceptable to Compsoc, although Kim objected to the LUG liaison being a voting exec position.

The proposed agreement between the LUG and the compsoc exec was then discussed.

Kim pointed out that any money or travel arranging by the compsoc exec will have to be with sensible cash bounds. Laurence said that he thinks the LUG would be expecting the compsoc exec to allocate a fixed sum at the start of the year within which the LUG would have to remain. Mulletron said that he thought any money for the LUG’s use should be included in the budget and agreed with the exec on an annual basis based upon funds available and planned events. Odd_bloke said that the LUG would be voting in its fist organising committee on Wednesday and that the precise amount and nature of funding should be discussed further after this event. A good basis may be what the LUG would receive if it were a society. Bruce said that the current minimum amount of funding any union society receives is £75 from the union.

Mulletron asked if the exec would like a funding request for the remainder of the year once a LUG organising committee has been formed, and Candle said he thought that would be a good idea.

Subject to the above discussion the agreement was unanimously agreed by the compsoc exec.

Changes to academic events

Polar reported that the previously published IBM lecture had been cancelled by IBM due to an event clash. IBM offered to reschedule it for next term of 3pm on the same day. Polar said he had sent an email asking for 3pm on the same day, and was awaiting a response from IBM.

Polar also said that the location of the perl tutorials had been changed to L5 from a room in DCS. Laurence reported that he had asked DCS to advertise the tutorial on the projector. Candle suggested that flyers outside L3 and in DCS would be a good idea to promote both the perl tutorials and IBM lecture events. Polar said that the perl tutorials will also be announced in a first year CS lecture (professional skills) and DCS will also be allowing the use of perl for that module’s coursework.

Candle asked who will be meeting the IBM guest lecturer, Polar said he would speak to Yvonne about it. Candle said it would most likely be him and Polar who meet the lecturer.

Pub crawl

Kim reported that he event was organised 2 weeks in advance and he asked Candle to said an email but it did not get done. Polar said that the first some people knew about it was the event appearing on the website and although a valuable tool the website is not a good medium to relay information about events existing to the members. Bucko said it is vital that someone makes sure an exec member attends such events. Candle said that is was poorly advertised and we must make sure this does not happen again in future.

Laurence floated the idea of re-organising and well publicising the pub crawl at some point in the next few weeks, and it was decided to try and re-organise this for Thursday of week 9.

Kim said that he has panned a bowling social Wednesday week 10 from 2 or 3pm onwards. He said that he hopes most people will be able to get a lift there. Candle asked Kim to add an event for the xmas meal. Kim reported that the meal is booked but we are still waiting for the Virgin and Castle to send us the cost and menu. It will be taking place Saturday of Week 9 at 3pm.

Lack of organisation

This, and the following `lack of…’ items are in response to several emails to the exec list citing these as problems the exec currently have, and hence need to address.

Bucko said he felt this is caused by there being no well defined person to ensure jobs get done. This situation has been partially rectified by having a joblist. Fred said that in general tickets should be filed to individual tasks and not just global `do foo’ tickets (e.g. `Organise LAN’).

Lack of communication

Bucko said that the random out of date newsletter did not help with communication. Candle said that the person who saids an email to member@ must not authorise it, but get another exec member to proof read it and authorise or reject it.

Bucko asked for newsletters at least once every two weeks and a draft to be sent to the exec list the day before sending it to members.

Fred said that if an exec member misses an exec meeting they must read the minutes, and all exec members should read the automatically generated bugzilla emails of unassigned tickets for any tickets they should be accepting.

Lack of responsibility

Bucko said that there seems to be far too much buck passing. Candle said that the entire exec should be at the LAN until the end to help clear up, although Kim pointed out that they usually are unless there’s a good reason.

Lack of society confidence

Bucko said he felt this was combination of all of the other points.

Fred said that he felt the main issue was a lack of events, and Bucko said socials in particular. Kim said the many members were unhappy with alcohol being banned at LANs.

Candle posed the question `How do we regain confidence?‘. Bucko said that when DrWatson’s (Phil Stoneman) exec came to power they ran a counterstrike tournament with snacks to say `we’re the new exec, we do cool stuff’. Something new and fun would be a good idea, especially with ITS currently preventing us from running gaming. Kim said that it was very hard to come up wit new, original, socials and he would welcome suggestions but Bucko said it did not have to be a social.

Lack of forward planning

This item was addressed by going round the exec listing all the planned events.

Bucko reported 5 LANs booked and planned. Fred said that Loughborough want all the exec in IRC to discuss a possible join LAN, and Candle said 5:30 on IRC on Monday. Fred reported that network patches for LANs are sorted until further notice.

Kim reported the xmas meal, bowling, a pub crawl early next term, karting next term, something involving Wing Wa’s and possibly Alton Towers at the end of term 2 but more likely early term 3. Bucko asked about the possibility of paintballing, and Kim said he could talk to Paintball Soc and see what can be organised.

Fred said he has poked ITS regarding Igor and is still pestering ITS with regards to Crypt/Graveyard. Candle suggested that arranging a face to face meeting with ITS would be useful as they are ignoring our emails. Fred said he would do, and the Crypt and Graveyard are currently being setup by Covbob (Graham Hayward) and PlanarPlatypus (Peter Ellis). Kim reported that Amoyra had offered the use of his room on campus if it was required to access insomnia.

Fred added that he would schedule a tech team meeting for LAN tech stuff.

Polar reported an IBM guest lecture which should be in week 8. There are also possible guest lectures from Microsoft, Red Hat and Kubuntu pending replies to emails sent. The are also possible tutorials from PlanarPlatypus on Python and the Center for Scientific Computing pending response. Kim suggested that a C tutorial for physicist’s term 2 modules would be good.

Morlark reported the LUG, BUGFLUG, LUG elections and regular tutorials.

Candle reported another clothing order and the programming competition, to be launched in week 8.

Bruce reported flyers for various events and the AGM in week 5 of term 2.

Tim suggested mini-lans on Friday evenings with laptops in lieu of gaming, and Bucko said he was considering it.

Any other business

Fred said he needed a new network card for bong as one has died, and mentioned the IRC rules. Bruce said that the IRC rules are on the website and if Fred choose a new network card he would get it ordered.

Fred said it would be nice to choose a `Google campus ambassador’ as we could get free stuff from Google, including pizzas. Candle dominated Fred, however Bucko said he would do it depending on what was involved.

Polar asked about organising a LUG event at the LAN, and Mulletron suggested a BUGFLUG at the LAN. Bucko said that that sounded fun.