What's this all about?
dave.me...@gmail.com
I'm Dave Menninger. I've been to a couple CLUG meetings but I've
missed one or two recently. Anyways, since I'm now not entirely sure
if I will be able to attend the April CLUG meeting I wanted to get
something off my chest instead of waiting for the right moment at a
meeting.
I graduated from OSU last year and moved back to Cincinnati last Fall.
While I was in Columbus I was part of a group of people that put
together a new organization called FreeGeek Columbus (
http://freegeekcolumbus.org/ ). Our purpose was to copy the work of
the original FreeGeek in Portland, OR ( http://freegeek.org/ ). I was
around long enough to see the organization bootstrap itself before I
moved back here. They seem to have continued on successfully since
then.
The reason I'm writing to this list is that I'd like to repeat the
project again here in Cincinnati. Let me describe what FreeGeek is.
The basic ideas are education, recycling, and free-software promotion.
FreeGeek takes donations of old computer hardware from various sources,
tests it, teaches volunteers how to build a working machine and install
Linux, then gives away the working machines to the volunteers.
Additionally, FreeGeek takes non-usable hardware to environmentally
responsible raw materials recyclers to keep computers out of landfills.
That would be the breif synopsis, and now I need to ask for your help.
Basically, I'm looking for people who are interested in helping out on
this project particularly in the early phases of establishing the
organization. I am somewhat familiar with what goes into getting one
of these up and running, but I'm just looking for some like-minded
Linux enthusiasts to join me. The first couple steps I think we should
pursue are getting something of a web-prescence, preferrably a
mailing-list and homepage/wiki. And we can start to do the rest of our
planning from there on.
So, if you've made it this far, thanks. If you want to talk more about
the project, email me and I'll keep you informed of whats going on. I
hope to be able to make it to a meeting soon, and possibly even present
a short talk on the subject. See you around!
~Dave Menninger