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LOPSA is at a turning point. For the first time in years, we have no debt, minimal operating expenses, and can invest nearly all of the membership dues and sponsorships into pursuing the mission of the organization. However, at the same time membership is static, volunteerism is almost nonexistent, and we are struggling to accomplish anything.
Several months ago, I asked a group of friends, most of whom are founding and charter members, what was “wrong” with LOPSA. The majority of them felt that LOPSA hasn’t ever met the goals of its founding and for the most part has become irrelevant. While there are times that I agree with them, I don’t think it has to be so.
With some effort, LOSPA can make a difference! We should be the ones working with educational institutions to set the requirements for curriculums in systems administration. Our members should be the ones defining best practices in the industry and publishing that information so it is available to other sysadmin professionals. We need an area on our web site for members to publish product reviews to help others make decisions about what products to use. Frequently system administrators are “lone wolves”, LOPSA provides the opportunity to form those individuals into a community.
Without involvement by the membership LOPSA will fail and die. LOPSA is an all-volunteer organization and we depend on those volunteers to make the organization function. To be honest I am as tired of asking for volunteers as you are of hearing me ask for them. But LOPSA cannot succeed without them.
We need members for the tech team to help with our day-to-day technical tasks and to help rebuild our web site. We need people to help with the LOPSAgram every month. Once we get the new site up and running, we will need content providers and peer reviewers for the product reviews and best practices documents I rented above. We need people with marketing experience to help the communications committee with getting the word out that LOPSA exists.
Can you help out? Do you want LOPSA to succeed? Drop us a line at volunteer@lopsa.org, or e-mail me directly at president@lopsa.org. Let’s take advantage of this chance to move LOPSA forward and make it the organization we want it to be!