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Many years ago I used to drive an old 1950 Chevy truck everywhere, including to work every day. At the time I lived at the top of a hill in Oregon City. One morning on my way to work I hit the brakes to stop and there was nothing there. Off I went into semi-panic mode. I knew that if I tried to downshift that I would pick up speed and not be able to get it into a lower gear. But no brakes.. what do I do now? I was lucky at the first stop sign and did not hit anything but the next was a “T” into a busy street and my chances of making the turn without hitting anything were getting slimmer by the second. I was working at not letting panic take over, trying to come up with solutions. A few times I hopped the curb hoping the curb or the grass would slow me down. I made the turn without hitting anyone (lucky) and there was a slight crest just before going down yet another steep hill with more traffic. I hopped the curb again and this time it was muddy enough that I managed to slow it down to a stop just as I passed the crest. I hopped out and through blocks under the wheels (not my first old truck.) Then I started breathing again and reliving it over and over, remembering not to panic… Then it came to me… I should have turned off the ignition!
I relay this story, not to show myself in an unthinking moment. The reason I relay this story, is to point out that sometimes the simplest and most obvious solutions is not so obvious when you are fighting panic and trying to figure out how to save the situation.
Cascade Users Group has been in trouble for quite some time. Many feel that it is time to turn off the engine. Others want to hang on and see where it will go. We have burned out a few officers and typical of the last few BOD elections it was more like everyone taking steps back leaving the “volunteers” standing in front. User groups do not work without the support of membership. The past directors have met a few times trying to figure out how to get this group to function. Attendance is low and official active membership is even lower.
It is time for major change. It has been suggested that we have one to three meetings per year and that they be for paid up members. If the group cannot support itself this year, then I will consider it my job to turn the key to the off position sometime before the end of the year. This may mean that it becomes simply another group on LinkedIn or some other social network. There are several of us that would be sad to see that happen, but if it is to be then it is. At that point any moneys in the treasury will be donated to a charity at the Board of Director's discretion. For now we are leaning towards one of the “Common – A Users Group” charities.
CUG is a fantastic networking opportunity for Oregon and Southwest Washington IBM midrange users for quite some time, starting as I understand it with the S/38 and now possibly ending with the IBM i. Some of us are still running AS/400’s and iSeries. All of us know it as the AS/400 no matter what IBM has named it since the S/38 and S/36.
With out user groups we rely on our vendors to bring talented guests to our area for local presentations or our own budgets to get us to remote presentations. In addition user groups are a great networking opportunity regardless of your employment status. This group has the potential to save both the individual and the companies that individuals work for to save a lot of money. Just last month I learned more about security audit journals and I consider myself to be a subject mater expert in the area. Ray Johnson did an excellent job of presenting to unfortunately a small audience. Attendees gained the knowledge to build valid security audit reports and gained names of go to people for questions. This was a topic that would appeal to all of the types of IBM i folks that are members of this group. For the manager, auditor and systems administrator it was a good visual of what reports could be made available. For the programmers it was security audit reports made easy. Why pay a vendor what what comes with the system?
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". The active members will be guiding the direction of this group. The old group on LinkedIn was Deactivated. I created a new one, please sign up for the group as we will be giving and getting feed back from that location. It is not an open group, but you will be added as soon as I see that you are an actual member, paid up or not.