[Fhsst-authors] AGM and some general news

[Mark Horner]

Hi all

a) AGM
b) New books (Biology, Computer Literacy)
c) Website
d) Mailing lists and spam

a) AGM

Firstly we need to schedule our annual general meeting (AGM). Our 
constitution says
we have to do it 3 months in advance and for the meeting to be valid we 
need
at least 3 of the current admin committee to be there. This means it must be
held during the week of the 22nd August. You've been warned - exactly 
which day we
can still discuss we'll only be able to have a legitimate AGM in that 
week (unless Sam has
plans to travel to CT he hasn't told me about).

We must, legally, hold the AGM according to our constitution for us to 
maintain our
NPO status which we need for any fundraising and security.

I would like to encourage everyone who can make it to a meeting in Cape 
Town in that week to
please attend, it really is important that we have some cohesion and its 
a good time to
finally meet everyone and get good feedback/suggestions.

b) New books

The Biology book has been started - to try to make things easier from an 
admin point of view we are
developing it from scratch on WikiBooks. Nicole has done a sterling job 
on getting the outline, guidelines
and structure ready so that we can easily handle any volunteers. If you 
know anyone who might be interested
in helping out with the Biology book now is a good time to approach them.

Adele will be running the Computer Literacy book. We'll start setting up 
the framework over the next 10 days. We won't be ready for any 
volunteers for at least 2 weeks but then its open season.

These two books should benefit from a lot of content which is already 
available on WikiBooks.

c) Website

We've had a few new sections contributed over the last week or so, the books
on the website don't reflect all the new content yet (a couple of maths 
sections and one
chemistry section still need to be added but rest assured we are working 
on it). There is a nice amount of
activity which is great to see. Keep up the good work.

I have also made steps towards bringing the authors lists up to date. I 
need to do some
checking - so if you aren't on it you will be very soon I promise!

d) Mailing lists and spam

The mailing lists are all delayed by a few days at the moment - I asked 
the Savannah admins how long
it would be but that list is also delayed so I don't expect a response 
till Friday morning my time (GMT - 7).

We've also been getting a lot of spam (it suddenly peaked a few days 
ago) but because we maintain closed
lists it hasn't been getting to you (though Sam and I see it all). I 
can't promise that none will leak through so
if some does know that its a very small fraction and that we'll close 
the hole up asap.

Cheers,

Mark