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What Organizational Methods Do LUGs Use?
spacey-g asks: "What methods are used by Linux User Groups (especially those in the US) to organize their group? Is it president/vice president/etc., anarchy, amorphous, monarical, three branches of government? What types of rules are typically laid down during meetings: Robert's Rules of Order, WWF rules of disorder, etc?. With the Linux community growing every day, I feel it is important to understand how local groups are handling the task of managment and interaction with other groups." Any LUG officers: please feel free to share what methods have and have not worked for your groups.
Well, we have the high commander (me) and then all the rest are just "comrades."
Through long association with a variety of interest-based clubs and at-work organizations, I've learned the hard way that this is a very important question. You don't know ugly till you've seen a bunch of people screaming at each other in a power struggle to take over a silly little hobby group.
I've seen two successful formulas.
The first is: make it democratic. This is the one everyone aspires to but rarely achieves. A club usually has a core group that first thought it up. Can they be trusted to establish *truly* democratic procedures that may well, in the future, result in their baby being yanked from their control? Mighty unlikely. However, it is possible. Just make sure that everything is out in the open. Generally, things are set up that are nominally democratic but as soon as the founders start not getting unanimous votes of confidence on every issue, they start "gaming" the rules to keep themselves in power. To avoid this, some precautions are wise. To wit: The books *must* be independently audited at regular intervals and *must* be made available for members to review on demand. If you have someone who can enforce Robert's Rules, that's cool. It's just not very likely that anyone wants to go to the trouble. (I remember an experience I had with a fairly new hobby club once. I moved the previous question. All I got were blank stares. It was actually kinda funny, in retrospect.)
The second way of setting up a club is intellectually more honest and can result in a great club. The founder(s) can simply say "Join my club." They can then run it as they see fit. They can charge whatever dues they want, run meetings as they see fit, put on any events they want to, and report it all on Schedule C of their tax returns as a small business (which is exactly what it is). In these situations, the business owner (founder) simply has to keep in mind that he won't make any money unless he provides a high-quality experience for his customers (the club members). If he entirely ignores them, they'll just leave and start their own club. But if the founder can stay reasonable, this sort of organization makes for much more efficient administration. It's the only way to have a club where it's in the self-interest of the people running the club to make sure that the members have a good time.
The only clubs where I've seen *fatal* organizational errors are clubs that are founded and run by one or a few people but that claim to be democratic. That sort of setup is a recipe for failure.