[BALUG-Admin] BALUG (pre-)draft announce

[Andrew Fife]

Michael:

I think your mini-bio looks pretty good.  The bio from his blog is also
worth considering. (see the bio/link below) Its your call, either way is
fine by me.  As for timing, lets aim for Tuesday evening to see if I hear
back with a talk abstract or title.

>I'll also "ask" ("please") / remind folks to RSVP.

The text immediately below from the Feb13 Bruce Perens announcement was
very effective at driving RSVPs... In the Feb13 message, I changed it from
previous messages and noticed a spike in RSVPs.  I suspect this was
because it helped people understand why the RSVPs are important.  Feel
free to borrow or modify it if you like.

<Feb13 Excerpt>
So, if you'd like to come, its time to get your RSVP in: 
  
  RSVP at balug.org

**Why RSVP??**

Well, don't worry we won't turn you away, but the RSVPs really help the
Four Seas Restaurant plan the meal and they ensure that we're able to eat
upstairs in the private banquet room.
</Feb13 Excerpt>

>I intend to also include brief mentions (with links/references) on:
>
>The 2008-03-01 Installfest for Schools
>
>LugRadio Live USA 2008 in San Francisco

If its all the same to you, I'd like to jump on an Installfest for Schools
on Balug_Talk later in the week.  I'd also suggest that we do a separate
post for LugRadio Live on Talk.  LugRadio Live looks like a great event
and I'll be manning the Untangle booth, so I totally support it, but my
general preference is to keep the message focused on one topic.  I'll
defer to your judgement in the body of the announcement, but I definitely
wouldn't put it in the subject line... which is the most important part of
any email.  

-Andrew

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/biography

"Mark is founder of the Ubuntu Project, an enterprise Linux distribution
that is freely available worldwide and has both cutting-edge desktop and
enterprise server editions, and has become very popular.

Mark studied finance and information technology at the University of Cape
Town, and went on to found Thawte, a company specialising in digital
certificates and cryptography. He sold Thawte to US company VeriSign in
1999, and founded HBD Venture Capital and The Shuttleworth Foundation. He
moved to London in 2001, and began preparing for the First African in
Space mission, training in Star City, Russia, and Khazakstan. In April
2002 Mark flew in space, as a cosmonaut member of the crew of Soyuz
mission TM34 to the International Space Station. In early 2004 he founded
the Ubuntu project, which aims to produce a free, high quality desktop OS
for everybody."

----------------------------------------
Andrew Fife
Untangle - Open Source Security Gateway
download.untangle.com

650.425.3327 (O)
415.806.6028 (C)
afife@untangle.com