The LUV committee has resolved to once again propose to the membership that LUV contact Linux Australia with a request to become a subcommittee of LA, and if successful to disincorporate as a separate entity. As previously discussed, this would allow us to take advantage of LA's public liability insurance which would give us considerably more flexibility in choosing alternative venues. It would also eliminate the need to file and pay for annual paperwork with Consumer Affairs Victoria and reduce the requirement for a large complement of office-bearers. The committee has therefore called a Special General Meeting of LUV to be held in conjunction with the next (November 2016) main meeting in order to vote on this proposal. Please either attend the meeting or send a proxy if you wish to vote. Thanks, Andrew **LUV Main November 2016 Meeting: The Internet of Toys / Special General Meeting / Functional Programming** Start: Nov 2 2016 18:30 End: Nov 2 2016 20:30 Location: 6th Floor, 200 Victoria St. Carlton VIC 3053 Link: http://luv.asn.au/meetings/map Speakers: * Nick Moore, The Internet of Toys: ESP8266 and MicroPython * Special General Meeting * Les Kitchen, Functional Programming *Nick Moore, The Internet of Toys: ESP8266 and MicroPython* Tiny, cheap and adaptable, the latest generation of WiFi-enabled microcontrollers put the IoT within reach. Nick Moore will look at the Espressif ESP8266 and its (mostly) open source toolchain. He will also discuss how to get started with MicroPython development to control simple hardware from the Internet, and the risks involved in doing so. Nick is a software developer and protocols wrangler who has previously presented at IETF, OSDC, LinuxConf, PyConAU and Buzzconf Nights. *Les Kitchen, Functional Programming* From Wikipedia: In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm—a style of building the structure and elements of computer programs—that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids changing-state and mutable data. It is a declarative programming paradigm, which means programming is done with expressions or declarations instead of statements. In functional code, the output value of a function depends only on the arguments that are input to the function, so calling a function f twice with the same value for an argument x will produce the same result f(x) each time. Eliminating side effects, i.e. changes in state that do not depend on the function inputs, can make it much easier to understand and predict the behavior of a program, which is one of the key motivations for the development of functional programming. Dr. Les Kitchen is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at The University of Melbourne. *Special General Meeting* Notice of LUV Special General Meeting, 2 November 2016, 19:30. Linux Users of Victoria, Inc., registration number A0040056C, will be holding a Special General Meeting at 7:30pm on Wednesday, 2nd November 2016, on the 6th floor of 200 Victoria St. Carlton VIC 3053. The SGM will be held in conjunction with our usual November Main Meeting. SGM BUSINESS The only matter of business to be considered at this meeting is: That Linux Users of Victoria apply to become a subcommittee of Linux Australia and conditional upon acceptance, wind up the present Victorian association as per rule 76 and section 133 of the Act and transfer all members and assets to the newly formed subcommittee of Linux Australia. Proxies: You may appoint another member of LUV as your proxy for this meeting, to speak and vote on your behalf if you are unable to attend. If you are submitting your proxy on paper, you should sign and date it. If you are emailing your proxy, then the date and act of emailing will be taken as the equivalent of signing and dating a paper proxy. You can use the following form, which you can copy from between the horizontal rules, inserting your own name and that of your proxy as appropriate: I, [insert your name], being a member of Linux Users of Victoria, appoint [insert name of your proxy], being also a member of Linux Users of Victoria, as my proxy to vote on my behalf at the Special General Meeting of the association to be held on 2nd November 2016, and at any adjournment of that meeting. [You can add here any specific instructions to your proxy, such as directions to vote in a particular way on a particular item. If you have no specific instructions, you can delete this bracketed paragraph.] Notes about proxies: * You can appoint any LUV member as your proxy. However, the committee suggests that it's practical and convenient to appoint the President, Andrew Pam, as your proxy, who can be trusted to act on your proxy faithfully. * Emailed proxies should be sent to luv-secretary@luv.asn.au, and must be received at least 24 hours before the meeting. * Members who wish to send a paper proxy by post should contact the Secretary for the postal address to use. Such proxies also must be received at least 24 hours before the meeting. * Paper proxies can also be presented at the commencement of the meeting itself. * We recommend using the above form. However, under the new model rules, you can instead use any form that clearly identifies your proxy and is signed by you. Questions about this meeting are best posted to luv-meta@luv.asn.au. -- Andrew Pam, as LUV President. 200 Victoria St. Carlton VIC 3053 (the EPA building) Before and/or after each meeting those who are interested are welcome to join other members for dinner. We are open to suggestions for a good place to eat near our venue. Maria's on Peel Street in North Melbourne is currently the most popular place to eat after meetings. LUV would like to acknowledge Red Hat for their help in obtaining the venue. Linux Users of Victoria Inc. is an incorporated association, registration number A0040056C.