[ProgSoc] Inaugural 2017 ProgSoc meeting, 24th of August -- a compact precis

Tomislav Bozic tomchristmas at progsoc.org
Sat Aug 26 16:16:09 AEST 2017


...so, at the behest of ProgSoc's dedicated, long-time membership, we 
finally got around to having our first meeting of Twenty Seventeen, 
which was held at Bar Broadway. What can I say -- better late than never!

The meetup was pretty well attended.  Apart from myself, there was John 
Elliot (prez 2009), Cody Love (current reigning prez), Brenton Smith 
(current reigning treasurer), Chris Deigan (current CSO), Jenny Nguyen 
(vice 2013), Christian Kent (prez 2000 and 2002), Carlin Rookes (prez 
2014 and 2015), Jacob Dunk (prez 2016), Robin Wohlers-Reichel (CSO 2014 
and 2015), Liam Edwards-Playne (vice 2016) and his friend (Felix? -- a 
new face!) and David Edney (prez 2005). Even Teigan Penna (current 
reigning secretary) made a lightning appearance. We even had a special 
honoured guest, in the form of a gentleman who served in the Papua New 
Guinea Navy or something; he just joined our party uninvited, but we 
were all too happy to have him!

It was a nice mix of older and newer faces, relatively speaking. John 
remarked that there were many people that he didn't recognise. I think 
that's a good thing! Granted, I recognised pretty much everyone that 
attended. Nice as it was to see so much of our once-active membership 
again in the same place outside of an AGM, it was a slight pity that we 
didn't really see more new faces, but that was to be expected for this 
event.

Apart from the imbibing of beer, playing of pool and general merriment 
all round, there was some discussion of ideas that we as a club could be 
implementing in the immediate short term:

* We currently have regular access to the Software Development Studio 
(CB11.05.402), a collaborative space for group-based, software-related 
subjects in the new FEIT building. Our plan is to hold regular meetings 
in the SDS EVERY TUESDAY henceforth. Such meetings could entail talks on 
various subjects of interest, presentations, demonstrations, or just 
general discussion. We're always open to ideas as to what we could do at 
our meetings. Liam, who is currently on campus on Tuesdays, has kindly 
volunteered to promote said meetings on our behalf. Thanks Liam!

* We could sponsor and field teams of UTS students to various 
hackathons, including Hackagong at the University of Wollongong. 
Sponsorship would entail, at the very least, covering travel expenses. 
We have the funds -- let's use them!

There was also mention of starting a "programmable bar fridge" project, 
akin to our Jukebox[1] and Norman[2] projects of recent years, but I 
believe that would be contingent on a) regaining a regular, active 
membership and b) Getting A Room, or at least a dedicated space, shared 
perhaps with other similarly-minded societies.

Special thanks goes to John for suggesting the venue and for ponying up 
the bar tab! Also, special thanks to our current CSO, Chris, for keeping 
ProgSoc's server infrastructure going!

Now that we've made this first, tentative step towards reviving ProgSoc, 
we need to keep the momentum going. We need YOU to participate. We need 
regular, weekly ProgSoc meetings to be a thing again. We need to create 
a new, active membership who will keep ProgSoc running. Then we can Get 
A Room.

Let's make September through to December, Golden Months of ProgSoc!

And let's make Twenty Eighteen a Golden Year!

Tom

[1] http://progsoc.org/wiki/Jukebox

[2] no link here -- it basically gave us keyless entry to the erstwhile 
ProgSoc room (10.3.380a remains forever in our hearts!)

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To judiciously use split infinitives is fine by me...



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