[GTALUG] [GTALUG-Announce] On the recent GTALUG Outage

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Scott Sullivan <scott at revident.net>

| We have great thanks to express to Hugh Redelmeier. A steadfast volunteer and
| contributor of our community. Uncoordinated with the board, he reached out our
| provider and offered to pay the bill. Successful by-passing our
| misunderstandings, hotfixing the situation, and bringing us back on-line. He
| will be compensated for an out of pocket costs.

1. The fix is temporary.  Linode has reinstated the server for the rest of 
   the billing cycle (I don't know how long that is; I've asked).  They 
   will get back to me about what I/we can do.

2. I offered to pay.  I don't know if they actually charged me.  If so, 
   I'm happy to contribute that to GTALUG.  Thanks for the several offers 
   of financial help.  Don't worry about it (unless this becomes 
   permanent).

3. I explicitly did not represent myself as authorized to linode.  I have 
   no admin access or anything like it.  GTALUG needs admin access to the 
   server or it needs to replace the server.  In other words: we still 
   have a problem.  This just buys GTALUG a bit of time.

| Speaking personally, these are hard times. I as I've returned to help bridge
| the gap from Chris's passing, I've found to many functions and knowledge and
| pool in to few people and was not being effectively taught to new
| contributors.

This is a real problem with community groups.  It can be addressed but it 
isn't easy.  GTALUG has done amazingly well.

| In the past, the board was just the voting head of a rotating group of some
| 10-15 individuals that contributed and attended the executive meetings.

That seems like a very healthy number, based on my experience with other 
groups.