[ale] What did we want?

[Vernard Martin]

On 1/24/2014 6:57 PM, JD wrote:
> Last week, the ALE meeting topic was tell us what you want ....
> for those of us who didn't make it to the meeting, is a summary possible?
>
I was one of the few folks that showed up. I think we had a total of 
about 8 folks there including the master of ceremonies, Jim Kinney.

Summary: The attendance itself was a sign that ALE is on its last legs. 
It doesn't matter what we want as obviously no one showed up to even 
state what they wanted :)

We moved the discussion into a different direction and asked "What do we 
want ALE to be going forward?" as opposed to what talks do we want to 
hear. Which is even more open ended.  The basic gist is that we need 
more leadership. Many of the current leadership are tired. They have 
served long and well and are ready to pursue other things with their 
time. so several of us (including myself) have volunteered to start 
taking over some of the leadership roles. This will include managing the 
various lists, wrangling speakers for talks and encouraging the ALE 
community to grow in both the readership and the attendance.

I'm sure more will be sent out soon. I think we have speakers for the 
next two months (and I think i'm one of them).
  We'll definitely encourage the readership to speak up on this matter.

Vernard