I'm often asked, "I'm not comfortable, experienced, or knowledgeable enough to do a presentation. How can I help the Gateway JUG other than doing presentations?"

Here's your chance. The Gateway JUG is forming a standing committee to manage presentation planning.

For purposes of planning topics, assume the Java experience scale runs from 0 - 9:

• 0 = A complete Java newbie
  
• 1 - 3 = Beginning Java Developer
  
• 4 - 6 = Intermediate Java Developer
  
• 7 - 9 = Advanced Java Developer
  

This committee will focus on balancing topics to cover upper Beginning (3) to lower Advanced (7) Java topics. The topics should cover current topics of interest to professional developers. They don't have to be specifically on Java, but should be closely related.

The 5 - 7 members of this committee should be professional Java developers interested in tracking trends in Java and software development. To get started, I will chair this committee, but anticipate a new committee chairperson will be selected once the committee is staffed and stable.

The committee will provide the following deliverables:

• An annual presentation schedule. This first plan will cover November 2007 through December 2008. In September of each year, the committee will formulate the next year's schedule.
  
• A quarterly review and revision report. At the start of each quarter, the committee will review the next quarter's presentation schedule and revise it if necessary.
  
• A List of possible speakers. These speakers will come from our local Java community, book authors, and well known public speakers from developer conferences and symposiums.
  
• This committee will be provided with an operating budget for its meetings and speaker expenses and honorarium payments.
  

I anticipate the first meeting of this committee will be late the second week of September or the third week depending on individual schedules. A forum will be dedicated for this committee's use, so much of this committee's work can be done online.

If you'd like to volunteer and give back a little to the group, please contact me directly at president@gatewayjug.org.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Jack Frosch,