Happy Holidays!
Woohoo!! The holidays. A great time of year filled with food, friends, and family... not to mention giving and getting. Oh and stress. Yep, usually, there is a healthy dose of stress. Especially in this industry. Pushing to finish those projects before holiday breaks and year-end is not always easy. We hope it all paid off and that you’ve had a fabulous holiday season.
LOPSAgram Changes
This year has been an interesting one in the story of the LOPSAgram. As you’ve seen, we missed some months and even one recent month. Yep, it’s not ideal. But for those of us involved in producing the LOPSAgram, it’s not easy. Getting info from our local chapters can sometimes be time-consuming, as much time is often spent simply waiting on replies. Then once we have some info to share, we must stitch it together. It’s the fun part, but it also takes time and a fair deal of effort, as it involves several rounds of edits and approvals.
Internally we continue to have debates about the usefulness of the LOPSAgram. The consensus is that changes are needed, but what changes? We go back and forth on specifics, but this is slow and, in truth, only theory. So we have decided that the time for pondering is done, and we are shifting into action! It’s simple: we will open up the process. We will make changes, and ask you, our readers – our members – for feedback. We will explore changes in tone, info, length, frequency, and even title (How do you like this new one?). We ask that you tell us when we mess up. But also, tell us when you especially like something. We need to know what works best for our members so we can best serve you.
As things develop and we decide on what changes will stick, we will be sure to let you know.
From all your friends on the LOPSA Board and your Community Manager, we wish you the happiest of holidays, and we’ll see you next year!
Board Changes
As some may know, Aleksey Tsalolikhin, one of our board members, stepped down in late August to give more focus to his growing professional training business, Vertical Sysadmin, Inc. Though we are sad to lose his dynamism and enthusiasm, we are happy to see his success!
So now, Aleksey remains the organizer of the Los Angeles LOPSA chapter and Drew Adams has taken over as chair of the Marketing and Communications Committee.
But there was still the pesky matter of that empty board seat.
Well, we have great news: We have formally filled the vacancy! Daniel Hodges heard about the vacancy and showed interest in filling it. He made it a point to meet the current board members and answer questions. During our last board meeting, we moved to appoint Daniel in Aleksey’s absence, and it unanimously carried. He will take the remainder of Aleksey’s term, serving in the Membership and Finance Committees.
Most are unlikely to know Daniel, but coming up, we will be doing interviews with all the new Board members, starting with him. Stay tuned! Here’s a quick preview:
Daniel (it’s always Daniel, never Dan, Danny, or any such derivative) grew up in Southern California but currently lives in New Jersey with his wife, Kim, and their zillions of animals. (Daniel and Kim are both huge animal lovers.) He works for Major League Gaming (aka MLG), a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard. Over the years Daniel has held positions as a SysAdmin, Sr. SysAdmin, and Lead SysAdmin. His specialty has been maintaining large Hadoop clusters. Like many of the current Board members, Daniel feels we need to be doing more to bring real value to our members. He is excited by the momentum LOPSA has had toward this end in 2018 and is looking forward to helping pick up the pace in 2019.
The board is excited to have him join and think he is a great addition to the team. He is eager to jump in and be an active, contributing member of the Board. Welcome to the LOPSA Board, Daniel!
Donations
We want to thank all who have donated during this holiday season! You all rock!! Every bit helps.
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| Jennine Townsend |
Brian Globerman
Lee Damon
Ian Viemeister
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Clark Hahn
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And a corporate donation from Fuzzy Logic Systems (Lee Whalen)
There is still time to donate
 While the year is almost out, there is still some time left to make a donation so you can write it off on your taxes. Don’t let the opportunity pass! Click the Donate button on LOPSA.org and make it happen before the year-end.
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