User:N Reid/sandbox

This is a temporary page recording some emails from CMUG's leading officers, Jesse Sng and David Lang, in 2010.

CMUG Domain & CMUG Updates

May 7, 2010

The CMUG domain lapsed some days ago and when I attempted to renew it, I ended up on a website that told me that the domain registrar had gone belly up and was no longer in existence and that all domains were now in the hands of 2 other companies. This was strange considering that I didn't receive any email about this at all.

I attempted to log in and try to see what could be done about it but was not successful. Since we had Macministry running and the list seemed to be operational, I left it alone, just to see what other options were available.

Earlier today, I went to the dns registrar's site again but this time around, it was the same website that I used to deal with. I'm not what happened, whether I had googled the wrong registrar site by mistake the first time around. But anyway, I will be attempting to renew the registration of this site.

This time around, I would like to pass the hat around as I'm having to manage the expense of 2 domain names and have been doing this (joyfully, I'm not complaining) for the past 7 to 8 years now. However, I'm no longer as active on this list as I would like to be and on a pastor's support level, this is expense that I can do without.

Let me know if you would like to help, perhaps we can do this using PayPal as I've just reactivated my account for some other purpose and it is available. For the sake of accountability however, I am considering whether (and I was hoping we could avoid this) we should set up a 3rd party account that can be audited by elected members just so that things are transparent and that you know that I'm not raking in more money that what needs to be reimbursed.

Anyway, I'll leave this open for discussion while I attempt to revive the cmug.org domain over the weekend. My thoughts are also that it is time for us to define a few office positions for CMUG and to call for the election of officers.

I do agree that the group needs to move on and in the light of developments over the last couple of years including the advent of the iPhone and iPad and their implications. This will require us to look into the role that we serve as far as the Mac and ministry community is concerned as our scope has expanded beyond just desktops and laptops to mobile computing devices also.

I for one am looking forward to the day when I can preach and teach directly from my notes on the iPad without the need to have to print anything out.

Jesse Sng
CMUG President

Some Thoughts about Holding Elections

August 21, 2010

Just chipping in here. When CMUG was started, it was entirely put together by a volunteer (singular) and was passed down that way.

Since then, much has changed in the Mac Christian community, along with the internet and what it is capable of. I don't even remember when David Lang and I took over the running of this list but one thing is for sure, we are no longer just running a mailing list.

1. There is a need to have a team running this. It was never David's nor my intention to hold on to control of the list or the domain name.

2. Before we elect a team to run this, we need to first Define clearly what CMUG is all about and lay down some parameters as to what we do. This has been a matter for debate for some time. I believe this can be perhaps expressed as a broad Vision of what we are about though it can be adjusted as time goes on.

We are no longer just about Macs, there are iPhones, iPods, AppleTV, iPads etc.. who knows what else Apple will come up with. I doubt we can define ourselves based on a product line.

3. Increasingly I've not been active simply because ministry, counselling and family responsibilities continue to expand to fill up available time.

I won't go into the details but some things happened over the last 3 years that have made me less willing to spend my time being involved in email exchanges on any mailing list, the fault isn't because of the folks at CMUG.

4. Personally things have taken a big turn at the end of May when my oldest son was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (yeah, the fatal one) and we've been just kept busy dealing with the consequences and changes arising from all that.

5. I do have some concerns about how we go about organizing ourselves as the virtual nature of the internet also means that it puts a limit to how structured we want to be. Do we solicit funds to fund some of the infrastructure? If so, how do we safeguard that and that also adds the burden of accountability. How democratic can the vote be given that you have a large number of members who are inactive on any typical mailing list? Should how active someone is be defined by how much stuff he/she posts to the list?

Some of these concerns have been behind my hesitation over trying to expand the organizational structure of CMUG too much (committees, budgets, Constitution???) but rather to keep things simple.

I still believe we should keep things simple and allow things to happen/grow organically.

6. Here's what I think we should do:

• appoint an interim working committee now to prepare the way for the election of officers
• draft a brief document that outlines what we will do/not do and our vision and goals
• the elected officers may or may not be those of the working group
• we will email every member of CMUG, requesting them to register to vote
• the working committee will fix a date for when elections will be held
• I will work with the committee to document the existing information/things to know about running what we have though we are at liberty to just swap everything out and replace it

These are just some of my thoughts about how we are to move forward. I think the working committee should be a mix of the old time members of CMUG and newer members so that we can ensure that there are those who understand the spirit of the early days of CMUG.

Personally I am thankful for the time spent on CMUG and the people that I've gotten to know here. I would credit CMUG with some important friendships I've made here that God used to lead me to surrender in full time Christian ministry and so to some extent, I would not be a pastor today if I didn't accidentally stumble onto the CMUG website and subsequently signed up on the mailing list back in 2000.

I trust that what happened to me would not be the first nor last time something like that happened in this group. What God did through CMUG is worth far more to me than all the iPads/iPhones/MacBook Pros and OS wars ever will and it is my hope and prayer that we will keep our focus on this more than anything else: ie. that CMUG is about PEOPLE, not about THINGS, specially the people of God and the God whom we serve.

There are lots of tech oriented groups out there, but there's only one CMUG. What distinguishes us has absolutely nothing to do with technology but rather the God we serve and the people who serve Him. Granted we are not a church, movement or a denomination, but I personally believe that once we lose that distinction and uniqueness, we lose our reason to exist.

I would like to think that we exist as a little oasis out there and are full of people who are using some of the greatest tools known to human beings to fulfill the greatest and yet unfinished task that has been left to us by our God, Creator and Saviour.

Jesse Sng
CMUG President

Mac-Min Voting and Hurt Feelings

August 25, 2010

Dear Mac-Min,

I've been so busy lately, I haven't even gotten a chance to read all these posts and follow the discussion. That said, here are my impressions as another old-timer and one of the current unelected-and-therefore-seemingly-without-term-limits officers. :-)

First, I don't think hurt feelings are something you have to worry about, unless you're talking about the hurt feelings of someone who volunteers to hold an office and may not happen to get elected. I for one don't see this as any kind of mutiny or hostile takeover, so you certainly don't have to worry about hurting my feelings.

I have wanted to do more with the CMUG website for a long time and have expressed that desire over the years, but I just haven't had the time to manage it. I would love to have someone, elected or otherwise, set up the website in such a way that several writers (including myself) could contribute articles that would be of help to people and increase CMUG's exposure.

Without a doubt, the Mac Ministry list has always been the beating heart of CMUG, but I've always felt that ideally, membership to the MUG should not equal being a subscriber to the list. Some people who might want to be members of a Christian Mac User's Group don't necessarily want to have to wade through the volume of email produced by this list. We therefore really do need a separate mechanism for becoming an official member.

I also firmly believe that CMUG needs to have an active web presence, and again, having to come up with articles and manage the website over the years just got to be too much for me. From the discussions I've seen I think a two-pronged site with an informational wiki and a team blog would be the best way to go. All I ask is that I get to be part of the blogging team (and not its sole member!).

Why does CMUG need an active web presence? Because many of you discovered this list through the website, or through links to articles on MacSurfer and other Mac news sites. The website is the public face of CMUG, and while it doesn't have to be cutting edge it should be kept current.

Do we need to elect officers for CMUG in order to accomplish these goals? As I see it:

1. If it will cost money to do the website the way we think it should be done, then we will need to collect very modest dues (a couple bucks a year from each of us?), elect a treasurer, and set up some kind of system of accountability for how the funds are handled. Neither Jesse nor I wanted that responsibility, but surely there are organized types here who could handle it. The person who manages the dues should also probably be the one who manages the list of CMUG members.

Another option instead of collecting dues is to sell ad space on the website. Either way, a treasurer is needed.

2. Whether these tasks require officers or not, I think we need:

a. A List manager to handle the technical aspects of the list, and some level-headed volunteers to help moderate it (David Burke, Scotte Meredith, and Drew Jannsen have done an admirable job in that latter role and I, for one, vote that they continue)

b. A web master to handle the technical aspects of running the website.

c. A content editor who will encourage people to post new content if the website starts to get stagnant. It can be something as simple as, "Hey Drew, that funny post you wrote about stiction would make a great blog post. Can we post it there?" (By the way, anybody around here long enough to remember that post about stiction?)

d. A "publicist" who will notify the Mac websites of CMUG content which is newsworthy or noteworthy. It's surprising how many of the Mac news people are Christians, and they are usually happy to link to CMUG when we have something worth linking to.

e. Someone to arrange CMUG discounts and similar membership benefits with various software and hardware vendors. Do you realize that Accordance still offers a 10% discount to CMUG members? I'm sure other companies would be willing to do the same, but someone needs to manage that.

If we divided these jobs up like this, we might very well be able to improve CMUG's presence and increase its influence (as opposed to just fixing what is broken).

I hope this helps move the process forward. I for one appreciate those who have been trying to beat the bushes and make something happen here. I have no problem stepping aside for those who are willing to volunteer their time and energy to improving CMUG. Sorry I've been so late to add anything of value to the discussion.

Sincerely,
David Lang
CMUG "officer" with a baton to pass :-)

Moving Forward with the Website

August 26, 2010

On Aug 26, 2010, at 10:38 AM, Vincent Danen wrote:

> I really don't understand the how and why of when this all went sideways. =(

Vincent, as I said, I haven't followed the whole voting thing since it got started, but I have noticed you (and others) periodically offering to do something about the web-site and not getting much response. That's similar to my experience over the years calling for help with the web-site. I'd have people volunteer their time, volunteer to host it, etc., but it would never actually happen.

I suspect the whole discussion "went sideways" and talk of elections got started because something needs to happen.

So how about this for an interim solution?

1. Let's set aside talk of elections for the time being.

2. Since the e-mail list can run on auto-pilot for a while, any change on that front can probably wait too.

3. Since the website is the most obvious thing languishing, and the thing you and others have, in fact, worked on, can we all agree to initiate whatever transfer is necessary to get it going?

We have Vincent offering to host the wiki and Faithe offering to set up a blog, along with Jon also offering blogs that he has already set up. We also have Neville willing to contribute to the wiki if he knows people will actually show some interest in it. I have volunteered to contribute to a blog. So how do we marshall the efforts of these volunteers and give them a format for doing so?

I suggest that the CMUG main page consist of a running blog, along with links to pages/posts explaining how to join the Mac-Ministry list. It should also link to the wiki and whenever a new post is made to the wiki someone should post a little blurb about it to the blog.

This seems a simple, straightforward design that would be easy to keep current (blog) yet with potential to offer a great deal of helpful information (wiki). If we can all agree on that basic design (can we?), then what is the simplest way to set it up on Vincent's server?

4. Once we have that plan in place and have elected/ratified the volunteers who will be in charge of it, I think Jesse needs to do whatever he needs to do on his end to make the transfer possible.

Can we at least do that and give the people wanting to contribute to the website the freedom to do so?

Sincerely,
David Lang

Three CMUG Presidents Prior to Jesse

August 26, 2010

All this talk of elections and moving forward with the website has me thinking again about a phenomenon I've noticed over the course of my involvement with CMUG.

There were three CMUG presidents prior to Jesse. As far as I know there was the founder, who eventually stepped down and appointed a successor, who in turn did the same, who in turn did the same, appointing Jesse. Interestingly, each of those former presidents has pretty much disappeared from the CMUG community (and Mac-Min list) after they stepped down. I've always wondered why that is, and suspected that they each probably got so burned out they just wanted to get away completely. If that's the case, that's not good.

That philosophical observation aside, can anyone name the three CMUG presidents (in order) prior to Jesse?

David Lang

CMUG Plan & Call to Action

August 27, 2010

Hi Everyone,

I would recommend that everyone hold off for the moment while David Lang and I get hold of each other on the phone. I feel very strongly that it is important that we have a chance to talk about what both of us would like to do next and then communicate that clearly to everyone else.

In addition, I am looking at setting up a Skype conference call where we might be able to get a bunch of us together (attendees and also participants). But this will have to happen after David and I formulate an action plan about where we are going to go with all this.

Meanwhile, I do think that it is a good time for the CMUG equivalent of a Call To Action (I prefer Call To Arms personally) and for volunteers to step forward, including identifying what they are able to do, how they can contribute, available skill sets and amount of time available so that we can have an "inventory" of the volunteer resources that have on our hands.

So I'm not asking for folks to sit and twiddle their thumbs, I see this as Recruitment time. We NEED people to step forward.

Please give us the weekend and until Monday to sort things out and either David Lang and/or I will then write out a summary of the Course of Action moving forward.

I apologize for not writing earlier, but I've been having full days all week that don't end until at least midnight and not sleeping until around 3am while having to start the day all over again very early the next morning. I'm just rejoicing I finally had about 6 hrs of sleep last night after a week long deficit.

Jesse Sng
CMUG President

CMUG Call to Action

August 27, 2010

Please use this thread to Sign Up if you think you might be able to volunteer time, labour and talent in some way or another. Please also give indication as to how much time you might be able to sacrifice.

The goal here is to have a list of volunteers and an inventory of talent and skill sets so that we have some idea of what we can do with the existing membership on CMUG.

Please Post away!

Jesse Sng

cmug.org domain

August 28, 2010

CMUG.org is locked at the moment. The registrar as a company shut down and for quite a while, I was unable to access their website. I managed to bypass their main webpage and went directly to the other pages and logged in. However I was not able to complete the transaction to renew the domain because their backend was probably no longer running.

This was the registry service that I had inherited when I took over the domain. I never liked it, but it was a greater hassle at the time to try to transfer this.

I've already initiated a transfer using another registry service that I'm using and I'm waiting to see what happens.

Jesse

September 1, 2010

Aaron,

I need your help on this matter. The original registrar Jumpdomain.com seems to have gone out of business, but not before locking up our domain. But when it expired later, I was not able to access the server to renew nor to transfer it.

I performed another transfer via Register.com and while I paid for the transfer, there's been nothing heard so far and I'm assuming that it was not successful.

Round up the people you need, find out if there is a way where we can get back the domain name. It is still locked and therefore not available to anybody else. But we need to find a way to contact the people who are able to initiate a transfer.

I'll be happy to send them any ID information they need if they need verification that I'm the owner.

We should probably take this off the list while we are communicating and working on this. Please cc: and include whoever else you need on this.

Thanks,

Jesse Sng