UCC Committee Meeting Minutes 2012-08-14 Present: [TPG] [EDO] [SAS] [SLX] [M12] [*OX] [BOB] {Rowan Ashwyn} [ODF] [TJB] [ASH] [ROW] [TAL] {Ryan Nicholls} Apologies: [JAB] Late: [CJS] Meeting opened: 1803 UST President's Report ------------------ - Camp internet: no response from Telstra. We have a decent chance of free, otherwise 15Gb for $250. Slightly cheaper from Optus. Vice-President's Report ----------------------- - Profcomp: 1 - Will to live: 0 - PLUG talk: you should go. About the PLUG Audio Visual System, at 7pm. - Charity vigil is the final friday of study break. -- By my calculations: That's the 28th of September. - Plenty of drama. Let's keep things quick. - Camp: Food pricing has started, not yet complete. EMP is not yet complete. Treasurer's Report ------------------ - We have money - $2759.22 in Guild - $2116.04 in Westpac - $143.30 in Safe - I have decided to leave $100-200 in the safe at the end of each week due to past issues with needing fast cash and not having it on hand - Safe is very secure, shouldn't be a security issue - Has reimbursed a few people for snack runs, etc. Secretary's Report ------------------ - We had mail, see below. - Has been thinking about the committee related discussions and is (believe it or not) looking forward to the discussion this evening. - Was working on the EMP for the camp, not yet complete. Fresher Rep's Report -------------------- Sorry I'm not here. Have work. I did put Tuesdays as not available on the thing but I should be able to make most meetings anyway Freshers are as happy as they are ignorant so they're pretty God damn happy Fresher of the week: Fiona Gearon Favourite game: No favourite game, has played Skyrim: The Adventures of George the Argonian. It's a mod that exists in your mind. Actually is real game according to fresher. Here once or twice a week but spends a lot more time in UNISFA due to "more couches" From the country. Up north. Self-proclaimed boring person. LIES I say! I didn't take a photo so here's a consensual link to her facebook.com/fiona.gearon In other news... I attended the UNISFA OGM for much hilarity. Then proceeded to recieve opinions about ucc from people there. Also have heard unnerving intra-club politics. All I have to say is, why can't we all be friends. Play nice. Don't fall in. Warning: Area around pool is slippery. Freshers are happy. OCM Reports -------------------- Frames: haven't done much, tech talk from PLUG, Audio Visual, tonight (tueday) 7:00pm. Charity Vigil meeting was at 5:00pm today. - We need more tech talks - anyone interested? They should be at least tech-related. - We have the joint event with the politics club soon. [ASH]: - Has been setting up the laptop. Needs to talk to Zanchey about the wireless system for wireless authentication. - Permanent connection to UCC Public with a logon script to auth to VPN. - Still working. [M12]: - Has been working on Guild website. Machine Technical Reports ------------------------- Servers Meersau: May be a zombie. Sent emails while *unplugged*. Seems to be working again, but onboard graphics is not working. Not a problem, so the thin terms are now working fine. Network Wired network is stable, but wireless was down for a while. zonemake.py didn't like a dynamic DNS entry, now fixed by Zanchey. Desktops We have them - Catfish is fixed. New graphics card and a clean, thanks [GOZ]. Laptop will possibly be called George. New equipment Laptop. Drinks and Snacks ----------------- - We have Mars and KitKat in snack machine. Need to be eaten before summer. - General membership: Please eat them! - We also have Mountain Dew and Orange and Mango in the drinks machine. - Enjoy! Mail, Guild and SOC ------------------- - Received mail: statement and tax invoice from UWA w.r.t. phone bills. - And a letter for BOB. - Phone bills have been dealt with. - Letter for BOB was bill from catering for MegaLAN for $594. - This is $94 more than was agreed, [BOB] will chase this up with Ken. - Guild elections are coming up. Be aware. - SOC still exists. Action Items ------------ - [ASH] to setup new clubroom laptop. - [SLX] to do camp stuff. - [TPG] to organise camp internet. - [BOB] to fix heathred. - [*OX] and to look at the calender system - this is no short term thing, will get round to it when he does - [EDO] to reimburse [SAS] for four drinks. General Business ---------------- [*OX] : a fairly long time member has has come to me, and expressed conserns that UCC is becoming more and more elitist, and unfriendly to its members. Particular concerns: - the club now has less gaming machines than when he joined, (may or may not be due to member machines leaving), but more machines. - Quote: "Getting on Coke and Door seems harder than ever, and god help you if you want to get on winadmin." - I think part of this is the technical questions on LOLDOG, seriously what are they there for. Door is a purely social role. - UCC is hostile: quote "People are playing [computer] games in Unigames and the loft, because they don't want to be in UCC." - UCC isn't nice to its members, and is very cliquey - Quote: "It's like you can't get any respect unless you can code a kernal in Vi." [BOB] : thinks that long time members are big enough and ugly enough to speak for themselves [BOB] : reimburse tpg $110 for 6G ram for mollitz (the backups box) - Receipt will go to TPG. Then reimburse. [LAW] : Ask not what your club can do for you, ask what you can do for your club. - JFK (paraphrased) [DAA] : Reimburse [DAA] (the person not the company) $190.80 for Snaxxx - Has been done. [RME] : [RME] : external UCCans have been unable to get an answer on how to pay for the camp tickets - This has been rectified by BOB, EDO will make himself more available for consutation in the future. Camp: The EMP is in progress, just the risk assessment to go. Pricing is in process. Marshmallows are expensive. Posters are still needed. Stacey (cephei) has made an initial design, but some adjustments are needed - SLX will consult. Posters should be posted around the Guild, Cameron Hall, engineering and the other clubs. Internet has been mentioned - still needed. Need cooks to volunteer, and for people to buy tickets. Need to decide on a cutoff date for the ticket subsidy. We want to encourage early purchasing with an incentive. September 7th is two weeks before, should be sufficient. We still have scholarships for freshers untaken, talk to Coxy. Politics club event: Tim Sondalini came to the clubroom, took a membership form and confirmed interest. He will book a venue, we need around 20-25 UCC members. - Promote! Promote! Pizza discount to encourage attendance. Managing the order of speakers will be done by Kate. [*OX]: A member has said the above. Respect issues, at least a perceived issue. Apparently a large number of UCCans playing games elsewhere because they don't like the atmosphere here. Common belief among those in "power" that some people are worth more than others. [EDO]: Complaint about the above complaint - he isn't a coder and yet was voted on to committee. Clubroom gets very crowded - are that many people being driven away? [ROW]: Look at the bigger picture. There is a negative atmosphere in UCC at times, especially against freshers. Is UCC a friendly place? It seems, no. [OLF]: The way committee behaves is not as nice/considerate as it could be. Committee would be good as a guiding force, mediating between the technical and less technical areas. [TAL]: Perceived lack of sharing of knowledge by the technical types. [TJB]: We're not always negative, but we can be arrogant. BOB isn't all that bad, just rough around the edges. [CJS]: Can't take this seriously. A lot of people who don't interact with the committee, come in and complain. Wants people to come to OCMs or others and discuss the issues rather than complain aimlessly. Encourages people to attend fresher oriented events - they do happen. [*OX]: This was caused by someone coming to an OCM (*OX) and talking about it - this is a good thing, and it is happening. Fresher welcome was a good technical introduction - was this a good thing? [TAL]: They should be better advertised. [M12]: Both "sides" of this argument are guilty of the rudeness and arrogance at times. There are not well-defined "victims", but there is a negative atmosphere that we should work to minimise. The idea that the "management" is difficult to approach is understandable - committees have been very technical and elitist. There is a feeling that people need to have a strong knowledge before they can get involved. We have the facilities to educate people, but they seemingly aren't being used. [TPG]: In answer to TAL, we should run more of our Learn to Linux talks, and get feedback from attendees on what we should focus on in future talks. A lot of learning requires the trust of being on wheel, perhaps we can help in other ways. [BOB]: What are the potential solutions? [CJS]: Discussing "elitism": misappropriated. Committee does talk among itself, but this is normal. If you'd like to be involved, get involved. There haven't been any suggested solutions yet. This is a waste of time unless people are going to actually come to AGMs and vote for committee input. [SLX]: Apologises for his "elitism": for instance, someone complained about downloading, he snapped and stated that people have just as much right to download as to game. Is willing to talk to anyone about tech stuff, and to run a tech talk in the vein of Learn to Linux. People are willing to share knowledge, it just needs to happen a little more often. We aren't that scary, and are willing to share. [OLF]: General feeling that there is an issue. Possible solutions: - Try to be more friendly [list to follow]. [M12]: Asked a couple of people over the past years about the divide between Windows and Linux machines. Some people don't now how to use a Linux machine - they need Windows on all machines. Linux users have a machine room full of Linux ony machines. The gaming machines are used almost entirely for gaming. {Rowan}: Fresher guide: He read it, but didn't understand some parts. When he asked for help, was directed to Fresher Guide. Not helpful. [TAL]: Likes suggestions proposed. Our perception of low level tech knowledge is still quite high. [*OX]: Some people think even the fresher guide is too advanced for some freshers. Weekly tech talks on basic stuff? Lowest common denominator stuff. [SLX]: New fresher guide can wait for the next one, probably next year. It isn't urgent. Did a brief survery - opinion was that committee was unfriendly. Dual-booting is not a good idea. We should encourage learning Linux, Sun, etc. It is a unique service not offered elsewhere. [ASH]: Dual-booting: People aren't always behaving logically. They have a fear of Linux, so there's a barrier to learning. This isn't how we expect people to behave, it just is how they behave. [TPG]: We need to talk to people, make sure the availability of help is well known. Meeting closed 1904 UST. Minutes uploaded by [DTK] at 19:03 on 2012-08-14