Hello All....
They say as you get older, time appears to go faster - I can definitely relate to that. It seem as though I was writing my report for May a couple of days ago. Actually it is somewhat less than a month as Terry wants to publish a few day early so he can take off to a warmer climate, for (hopefully) a well earned rest. But he has already ruined that impression by saying that he will continue with his committee duties by virtual attendance. And has even offered to return earlier than he was planning so he can give a monthly meeting presentation in Sept - very much 'above and beyond'! The change of meeting schedule has happened because we must have the audited accounts for the year for the AGM, and as the meetings have been moved to the beginning of the month - there is little chance that the Auditors would be finished by the 6th Sep - so it looks as though the AGM will be on the 4th Oct.
So what's been happening with the group in the last month?
1. As promised we put new Membership classes and discounts into effect
on 1st June. Also as promised we introduced Dial-up Email for all
members, and a $5 a month 'low use' dial up plan. Checkout
http://www.pcug.org.au/member_info/member_services.htm
for new membership plans, and
http://www.pcug.org.au/IS/internet_services.htm
for the new dial-up plans, if you have not already done so. We were in
so much of a hurry to do this 'on the day' as promised, that
we failed to think through all the various
What If scenarios.
Such as "I have paid $65 for a full membership to end at the end of
June 2006, but now I want to change that to an Individual membership
with Senior discount"? Or "How do I apply for a User Name and password,
I am with another ISP but want to access my mailbox and get into the
area for special offers for members"? Or "I have paid 3 years
membership in advance - do I get an extra discount". "Do I still get my
old Basic access web space - even if I am with another ISP"?
The permutations and combinations seem endless, and our new Office
manager Karen and our valiant volunteer staffers at "the sharp end"
have been trying to cope with these and many other questions without
much direction from the Committee. I am hopeful that we can resolve
some of the issues at the next committee meeting tomorrow (Tues)
evening. So please bear with us for a while longer and accept our
apologies for dropping the ball on some of the associated issues that
came with the changes. Just to complicate things - we are also working
on new Broadband plans and prices and no doubt changing to them may
raise another set of "What-ifs".
2.
I should also remind all
members that we are a reasonably modern group, used to current
technology, and the vast majority of our members have access to the WWW
and Email. These are our primary (and almost only) means of
communicating with our members. We are not totally happy with having to
try to keep up with members who constantly change their Email addresses
when the find an even cheaper ISP, and then move on again when they are
disappointed. Usually they do this without advising us of their new
Email address or clearing their old PCUG Email regularly, so they are
cut off from the rest of us and wonder why they bother to renew their
membership. We expect to be even more reliant on Email in the future as
we hope to start invoicing renewals and receipts to members via Email.
Ideally we would like to ensure that ALL our members have User names
and passwords so that they can pick up their Email and stay in contact.
Even if they are with another ISP we can provide instructions on how to
forward their PCUG mail or to collect mail from the PCUG as well as
their 'other' ISP. Or even from their local library via Web mail, or
via a friend's system or whatever. Once we have a quick and easy method
of allocating User names and Passwords to those who may have lost them
(or never got one), we will limit access to the member's web area. That
will either trigger a mass of requests for access - or mass
resignations {:-((
3.
After the initial huge
effort of moving the Centre from Belconnen to Holder - things have been
moving along slowly. We had a successful 'working bee' last Friday when
we got all the whiteboards and notice boards fixed and also brightened
the place up a bit with some of our pictures and posters. Thank you
very much to all who helped with that effort!
Of course this was in preparation for the Party the following day which
I felt was a great success. Good thing I had a designated driver - I
really hope I did not insult anyone, and that if I did - you have
already forgotten as I have..... My wife Betty took a load of pictures
which are posted at
http://tinyurl.com/axmy3
and I have to say that the majority of us look incredibly ancient.
Perhaps that is because an increasing proportion of us are. We need
more young blood...
There are loads
of things still to do at the centre. My biggest hope is that we can
restart training soon. Apart from TIP I regard the training facilities
as our biggest asset. I would love to be able to run all types of
courses from 2-3 hour ones through to 2-3 day (or even longer) ones. We
need to network and hide all the power and network cables first, and we
have the technical support to do this. What we really
need now is for someone to step
forward and offer to be the Training Manager. We really need to start
planning now, while the technical side is being done. You do not need
to be a computer genius - just a good organiser and an interest in
education/training - perhaps a current or retired teacher? We would
love to hear from you.
Finally on the Centre, we are still debating possible building changes.
Some of our SIGs have realised that there is just insufficient room to
have a relaxed meeting in the 'office' area, and the training room is
not really suitable. We are faced with a choice of spending some fairly
big bucks for a new entrance and office area, or staying more or less
as we are, and suggesting that the SIGs hold some of their meetings in
the building conference room or tea room, or even try to get into one
of the local clubs..... Again I hope we can reach a decision on this
quite soon.
4. Lastly, those who I have talked to recently will know that I have no intention of standing for re-election next year. Apart from anything else - she who must be obeyed has decreed it. I hope that most of the hard work to reinvigorate the group will have been done by October and that it will be smooth sailing after that. Certainly the President's work load should decrease - if only that the incoming Pres will be more successful at delegating than I have been. I am really happy to announce (without any prompting from me) that Allan Mikkelsen volunteered to fill the Vice President slot. So we finally have a full 4 person Executive. But I don't know how many of the others are planning to stand again (few, I suspect as change is always traumatic), so we really need to start bringing in some more of the membership into this year's committee with the object of a smooth handover in October. Believe it or not it can actually be fun, and so now is your chance to keep the group heading in the right direction and to make your voice heard!
All
the best - John Saxon
13 June 2005