Some
people have reminded me that “El Presidente” should keep his eyes on the Big
Picture items, and delegate all the day to day activities to various
minions. In practice – this seems to work well in industry & business where
people are actually paid. As I did not need to be told – things are somewhat
different in a volunteer organisation, and I seem to have spent way too much
time ‘putting out fires’ over the last month.
But at least one Big Picture item has bubbled to the surface again recently – this one can’t get much bigger, and can be roughly described as “The future of the PCUG”.
Since Noel’s disclosures at the last AGM – many will know that it is now official. We have been living beyond our means and costs are rising while membership and revenue are falling. Some believe that the group should return to it’s roots and outsource TIP, ditch the training room and the ‘shop front’, and allow the membership to (probably rapidly) decline to 200-500 members who are the diehard computer enthusiasts. This would certainly be fairly easy to organise!
But I believe that our Committee of Like Minded Souls was elected to try to reverse the membership trends while reducing costs but not membership benefits. Difficult – but not impossible.
Our biggest costs are associated with the Belconnen Centre and training room – and it almost a given (in my view) that we have to move to cheaper premises. On that front – things are looking quite promising. We have been offered space in the Canberra Technology Park (Old Watson High School) at considerably lower rates that we are currently paying – but they are still commercial rates. We could take out a lease tomorrow. We have also applied for space in the new Griffin Centre in Civic at a much cheaper rental again – but that will not be completed till next September. We are also negotiating for some space in a building being renovated in Yarralumla – if our application is successful, we may get in for even lower rates. But once again – it will not be available until next June.
All of the above include space to re-establish the training room (one of our best – and most underused – assets). One possible alternative is to go into partnership with another local training provider, such as U3A to run a joint training facility and then we would just need a small ‘shopfront’. So stay tuned.
The only real alternative to moving is to rely on the somewhat variable commercial training room hire, and/or to apply for Government ‘Digital Divide’ money, to provide training and computing facilities to the disadvantaged in our society.
We are also trying to build up membership benefits such as the TIP Trial (going well), the Web site, Magazine and Calendar, etc. One major item I can announce is that we plan to issue all members (who don't have them) with a TIP User name and password – even if they are not currently paying for TIP Advanced Access or Broadband. This will allow us to provide a number of new services.
Talking of special offers – we have a great one coming along. Like many specials you will have to spend some money to make the savings….. But we have a deal in progress with the Australian PC Authority magazine. Almost the best of the big 3 PC magazines in my opinion (I’ve been a subscriber for several years). How about this? Normal News Stand Price $8.50 an issue = $102 per year. Normal subscription price = $76.50 per year. Price for PCUG members = $42 per year, a saving of $34.50 per year – delivered each month to your letter box. We hope to have this set up within the next 2 weeks for TIP members who can log in securely (the magazine understandably want to limit this offer to one per membership). We may have to manually subscribe Non -TIP PCUG members initially.
And to celebrate this benefit – David Kidd the Editor of PC Authority magazine will be talking at the main monthly meeting at 7:30 pm on Mon 29th Nov at the normal ANU venue. Full details will be in this magazine or on the web site or both – but I’m really looking forward to it as I have tried making suggestions to various magazines via Email – but seldom received replies. But now we can make them direct to the Editor..... David will hopefully be bringing along some cool/geeky/interesting items from their testing labs to ‘show and tell’ as well. So be there!
STOP PRESS! After our marathon 4 ½ Hour Committee meeting yesterday – Things have changed.
By majority vote it was decided to relinquish the lease on the training room very soon. This means that we will cease operations there (mostly commercial hiring) probably at the end of Dec. After discussions with the landlords we may well decide to relinquish the whole premises at the same time. Then rent some small office space and put the remaining equipment into storage until our new permanent home is ready. But perhaps not – depending on costs. If that does happen we will consider some temporary reductions of fees, or other incentive to members, to bear with us until we are able to offer all the current benefits of membership once again. I should probably ‘fall on my sword’ at this point as I did say that we would loose the training room “over my dead body” – but there is no question that we have to reduce costs ASAP…..
15 Nov 2004