[SGVLUG] History Lesson wanted...

[David Lawyer]

On Tue, May 15, 2007 at 04:40:13PM -0700, Emerson, Tom (*IC) wrote:
> This is mainly for David Lawyer and anyone else who has been involved
> with SGVLUG (or SGVLLUG) for a long time -- I'd like to put up a
> (potentially evolving) page on the history of our group -- way back from
> where it started in Gunther's garage (or was it his living room?)
> through the days at Fuller and so on.  (the "evolving" part would be
> updated whenever we do something worthy of comment in the future... ;) )

Although you asked that stuff be sent directly to you, I'm posting a
"history" file that I wrote a couple of years ago to the list.
There's more that need adding.  Here's my file:
			David Lawyer
===========================================================================
		History of San Gabriel Valley Linux Users Group
			by David S. Lawyer, Jan. 2005

It was founded on Nov. 11, 1995 by Gunther Schleinkofer.  It met in
his small abode in Altadena at 481 Sacramento St.  Attendance was only
a few to several people in his small living room.  There was no
program.  People just sat and talked.  Gunther was the leader.

Then in early 1998?, the group moved it's meetings to Fuller Theological
Seminary at the invitation from IT people at Fuller, one of whom was
Christoph Lamenter (also a student there). The first meetings at
Fuller were around a large table but it soon moved to an auditorium
where speakers presented programs.  Thus the meeting format changed
from informal discussion to presentation.  

There was a lot of talk about organizing formally and a Steering
Committee meeting of 11 people was held on 3 Sept. 1998.  No consensus
was reached on how to organize or if we needed to formally organize.
But certain people volunteered for certain tasks (secretary,
publicity, meeting room, etc.).  Craig Zeller was to continue to
provide our website and mailing list and moderate the next 2 meetings.
There exists two different reports on the result of this meeting.
In 1999, Tom Emerson began to moderate meetings.

Then in April 1999, disaster struck the LUG.  Our webmaster, Craig Zeller 
wrote;
Date: Fri Apr  2 10:16:30 1999
From: zeller at zdi.net (Craig Zeller)
Subject: SGVLUG Fin
To: linux at zdi.net ("'linux at zdi.net'"), newsig at zdi.net ("'newsig at zdi.net'"), netsig at zdi.net ("'netsig at zdi.net'"), devsig at zdi.net ("'devsig at zdi.net'"), pcsig at zdi.net ("'pcsig at zdi.net'")
Reply-To: linux at zdi.net

These mailing lists were provided as a place to exchange technical
information about Linux, not as a forum for political, religious, or
sexual discussion or flame wars.

The mailing lists, web site, and my personal SGVLUG participation have now
become more of a burden than I am willing to assume.

Therefore, these mailing lists and the web site for the San Gabriel
Valley Linux Users Group will cease operation effective immediately.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
It wasn't actually shut down immediately and a copy of the site was
made before it disappeared.  In less than 2 hours after the above
email was sent, a temporary mailing list was created, but no one
except Craig had the complete email list.  The LUG eventually got the
sgvlug.org website.

At Fuller, there were sometimes problems with getting the room.  We
were normally notified in advance that it would not be available and a
substitute room was provided.  But then once we got there and found
our meeting room locked with no one to let us in and no subsitute
room.  We somehow held the meeting in sort of a lobby area in a nearby
building.  Due in part to this meeting room problem it was decided to
move the meetings to Mandrake Soft on N. Lincoln Ave. in Altadena.
They offered us free use of their space.  The first meeting there was
in April 2000.

But later, Mandrake would not let the LUG meet there anymore so the
LUG meetings moved to 070 Moore Hall at Caltech.  Unable to get this
room anymore, the LUG moved to 101 Guggenheim in March 2002.