Daily Archives: March 16, 2006

Four inches of new snow – on top of grass (and some maple syrup musing)

Vermont

Is winter back? Well, it’s pretty but I can’t go out and ski in the woods even though we got lots of fluffy snow overnight and this morning. My skis would just go right down to the rocks and grass. Oh well. Bad for the maple syrup makers right now but its still early. They require cold nights and warm days for the sap to flow (up to the top when it warms up, down to the roots when it cools down…. each pass is a chance for the sap to flow out of the taps). But we had days and days of warm days and warm nights and now cold nights and cold days. Neither is the right combination! I did see the thick plumes of smoke coming out of a sugarhouse on monday. I wanted o stop and roll down my window so I could smell the sweet sugary smoke, but it wasn’t an option at the time. Did you know that it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup?

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

INETA User Group Leaders – Why are you reluctant to tell INETA your meeting #s?

Ineta

I am astonished that INETA has had to go so far as to have a prize drawing to encourage user group leaders to report on the health of .NET user groups (thereby also helping INETA to show it’s sponsors what type of reach they are getting which is a VERY reasonable thing for a sponsor to ask).

Once a month, it is a tiny itty bitty task. All they ask is that you identify yourself, your user group, the date of your meeting and the # of attendees. Additionally, they ask what your current membership count is and if you are so inclined, you can even leave comments.

One minute? Two?

So why is it hard to get u.g. leaders to do this? Do you find it invasive? That’s the only thing I can come up with because certainly it’s not much of an imposition. Even if INETA did nothing more than provde the speaker bureau – that’s huge. And this is just about the only thing they ask in return other than eval forms when they send a speaker (and pizza) to your group three times a year. So what if they ask every month – not just months that you have INETA speakers. And even with that, you cannot imagine the time and energy that the INETA volunteers put in to running this organization. And for what? For you – for your user groups. So a little survey each month is not much to ask as far as I’m concerned. I’m very happy to share that info with them.

Really, I am very curious why bribery is necessary? Not that I would turn down a $100 gift card for my user group (though I wish I could use it at the local pizza joint)!

Feel free to leave comments or link back to this post if you want to blog a reply.

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org