Subject:
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NELUG Meeting Notes, Wednesday July 12, 2000
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.org.us.nelug
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Date:
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Thu, 13 Jul 2000 22:45:46 GMT
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The New England LEGO User's Group held a meeting on Wednesday July 12, 2000 at
Bison County in Waltham, MA starting at 7:30p.m. and lasting until 11:00p.m.
Our usual topic for conversation, the LEGO brick, was supplanted by a re-
examination of the organization's membership rules regarding minors. The
meeting was well attended, drawing 15 members to the table, with an additional
opinion submitted by proxy.
We discussed at length a number of proposed changes to our group charter, and
considered the merits of each. We quickly eliminated the subjective
"membership on a case-by-case" scenario, as none of us wants to have to act as
judge and jury about somebody's maturity and compatibility with the group. We
also eliminated the proposal to just lower the age restriction on membership,
since whatever age we might decide on would be somewhat arbitrary, which would
force us to revisit this issue every time the new limit was challenged.
Therefore, the essential question boiled down to whether we wanted to preserve
our current "over-18" membership requirement, or whether we should abolish the
age restriction altogether. Many viewpoints were aired throughout the
evening, but there was little dissent and virtually no argument over any
point. In the end, the group achieved consensus that we will not make any
changes to our membership requirements at this time.
NELUG was founded as a means for adults who build with LEGO to get together to
display our creations and talk with like-minded adults. The format of our
meetings is geared toward adults, and we as a group are quite pleased with the
atmosphere that we have created. The continued popularity of our meetings and
the enthusiasm of our membership validate that we have succeeded in creating
something that is good.
None of our members wish to jeopardize the organization that we have built by
changing it into something that it is not. We feel that eliminating our age
requirement would change the purpose of the group and the flavor of its
meetings to the extent that it would be the same organization in name only,
not in spirit.
While we have decided against allowing members under the age of 18, we do want
to make provisions for builders of all ages to be involved in public shows,
like our two previous Construction Site window displays. We will be fine-
tuning our non-member participation policy at coming meetings, so watch
www.nelug.org for more information.
Through the course of the discussion, it also became clear that most NELUG
members would actively support the creation of a separate organization geared
toward all-ages membership, and would join and promote such an organization if
it existed in our area. However, none of us feel that we have, individually
or collectively, the specific skills, time, and energy that would be required
to embark on this major undertaking. As we have learned, running an
organization like this takes a lot of devotion and hard work, and the new
organization would require a core of dedicated individuals to make it happen.
We may not be those individuals, but we would certainly be there to assist and
support you if you are.
In closing, we ask that you respect our decision, understanding that it was
not made lightly or without many hours of consideration by all involved. We
acknowledge that our decision will frustrate some members of the LEGO
community, but we encourage anybody in that situation to take an active role
in planning events or establishing an organization that does meet their
specific needs. You can certainly count on the support of the members of
NELUG in any such endeavor.
Respectfully,
The members of The New England LEGO Users Group
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: NELUG Meeting Notes, Wednesday July 12, 2000
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| Hi Chris and everyone, I'd like to say thanks for taking this seriously and dedicating your time to think about it. I can't say I'm not disappointed - that would be a lie - but I understand your reasoning. I might try to start an all-age group; I (...) (24 years ago, 14-Jul-00, to lugnet.org.us.nelug)
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