AUUG-Vic is the Victorian (Victoria is one of Australia's states) chapter of the national AUUG organization. AUUG-Vic actually started somewhat before AUUG decided to have chapters, and thus was well positioned to become the first cab off the rank when the notion of having chapters was first floated within the national body.
As of early this year I ascended to the throne and have been attempting the job of president. As a part of a larger national whole, AUUG-Vic is fortunately a low-maintenance group which nevertheless manages to provide a reasonable level of usefulness to the Victorian membership of AUUG. Our activities usually devolve into three main areas:
The first of these is an annual summer one-day technical conference. This is organized and run by each local chapter and typically consists of one day of conference and one day of tutorials.
The next major events we organize locally are our regular social and technical evenings. These alternate at roughly six-week intervals throughout the year with some slight adjustments to accommodate other fixed events in the local social calendars such as the national winter conference, football finals and public holidays.
The most recent technical evening featured two speakers, both of whom spoke to a reasonably large audience on an Internet Protocol-related theme. Our first speaker told us something about the state of play with the national IP network run by the Australian tertiary institutions, which is currently in the process of altering its policies in order to charge for services and allow access to a broader cross-section of society. The second speaker showed us Mosaic and some of the implications of this new approach to surfing the wire.
Early this month we also had a social evening. This, as has often been the case in midwinter, was quite poorly attended and this is in fact an issue the committee has been addressing for some time. Our solution will be a change of venue to a more central site in Melbourne and some extra effort warning members that the appointed time is drawing near.
AUUG-Vic's final role for the local membership is as a first line of contact for those members with the national body. Dealing with a contracted management organization can leave members a little at a loss at times. Our role here is simply to facilitate and to intervene on those few occasions when it may be necessary.
Enno Davis is president of the Victorian Chapter of AUUG, the Australian UNIX Users' Group.