[Koha] Organizational Meeting for Koha Users Group

[John Brice]

Dear Koha Mail list Member:

Announcement!


We will be having a formal organizational meeting of Kudos (Koha Users 
Group) at PLA.  We are still working on the date and time of the event.  
Once it is determined we will e-mail everyone on the list of current 
developments.  The meeting will be broken into two parts first meeting 
will be for existing Koha users or Koha users planning to be up and 
running within six months.  This meeting will be an organizational 
meeting to discuss what type of national organization to form the agenda 
will be as follows:

                               1.   How did we get here? A short history
                                  of Koha
                               2.   Do we need a formal users group for
                                  Koha?
                               3.   Develop a mission statement.
                               4.   What type of structure do we need?
                               5.   Form a committee of three to write a
                                  by-laws proposal.
                               6.   Schedule next meeting.


The second part of the meeting will be a general interest session and 
will be opened to anyone who is interested in Koha.


I understand that there is an IRC meeting being organized to talk about 
exactly these same issues.  I request that the meeting be postponed to 
after PLA.
I ask for this postponement based on the following reasons:

    Previous meetings between vested parties of Koha, from many
    different nations, asked that any organizations based  on the Koha
    ILS be based on national boundaries, ie the French Koha Organization.

    I believe that any Users Groups should be limited to only those
    individuals who are using Koha presently or are planning to use Koha
    within a relatively short time, say six months or so.

    Using the IRC to form an new organization as complicated and unique
    as a Koha User's Group would be difficult at best and and anarchy at
    worst.   Once we have some sort of structure in place we can then
    use the IRC channel to discuss specific  steps and or  issues.  But
    to get started we need at least one sit down meeting with 7 to 10
    vested users of the Koha  ILS.


I understand that many of you may be asking yourselves what the heck is 
going on here, who is in charge of the Koha Users Group?  Well the 
answer is no one is at this time, hence the confusion and multiple paths 
of discussion.  

Each library has to make their own decision about the best  path to 
follow in helping form a users group.  Anyone else interested in 
discussing this matter with me can reach me at jbrice at ccfls.org or call 
me at 814-336-1773.




Sincerely,


John Brice
System Administrator
Crawford County Federated Library System

Executive Director
Meadville Public Library