Hello again,

Terry tells me he needs a page pres.htm and he needs it now! Well, I'm here to tell you that I am no longer the President since I did not stand for re-election, but am now the Immediate Past President (I even apparently have an IPP Email alias). I will be joining the new committee at their first meeting on Mon 24th Oct, and (if I have my way) almost the first item on the agenda will be the election or appointment of the new President.
So, assuming that most members do not bother to read the minutes of the committee meetings, I will repeat my yearly summary that I presented at the AGM, plus some notes on the financial results for FY05. We tried to post the minutes on the web within a week or so of the meetings, and you can find them at www.pcug.org.au/members/committee - you may need to scroll down a little....

So here's the report:

More by Luck than Judgement! At least from my perspective…..

 Towards the end of last year we were desperate to move premises. We were being pushed by the landlord to sign a 3 year lease, and we had investigated dozens of potential alternatives with no (even ½ way suitable) results. We were on many waiting lists, but the best we were offered was in Spence – South Yass from this Southerner’s perspective. Then in the nick of time we were offered the rooms in Holder – we could easily have been searching for another 2 years. One third of the Belconnen rent, and a lot of other good things going for it. A real piece of luck. 

Then before we left Belconnen, Madeline decided that the grass was greener elsewhere. And after quite an extensive search we were able to offer Karen a job as our Office manager. This turned out to be one of the best things that has happened to the group for a long time and she has already become a great asset. 

Then with the help of Peter Harris (the member who founded the PCUG), now a solicitor, and his Barrister friend, we were able to negotiate a reasonable Belconnen lease exit fee. Down from $20,000 plus to about $2,500. So we owe Peter, who did quite a lot of work for the group Pro Bono, a big vote of thanks. Another member, Peter Reeves, did extensive work on the lease and other paperwork to get us going looking for legal support. 

The move from Belconnen to Holder was a huge success thanks to the armada of members who turned up on the day with trucks, trolleys, and enthusiasm. So much so that we were able to cancel the two removal trucks and crews. I mentioned the firm concerned in Sixteen Bits magazine as they were so good about the last minute cancellation. 

So let’s run quickly through a few more of the high points before I get to stuff that we had hoped to do – but will now be left to the committee that you elect this evening. 

  1. TIP passed a significant milestone – it survived and prospered for 10 years thanks to the dedicated band of Administrators. We were able to give ALL members a free Dial-up TIP account for Email, and to introduce new dial-up plans - a low use $5/month - and to change the ‘normal’ plan to virtually unlimited time and download for $9.50 per month. On the broadband side we doubled and then re-doubled the download limits, introduced low use and unlimited plans, and TransACT came to the party and brought in increased download speeds for the same price. And we were also able to offer extra ‘real’ Email boxes as well as alias addresses.
  2. Thanks to reduced costs with the move we were able to make some modest reductions of membership fees, by providing a discount for Seniors and introducing Household and Individual memberships. Also on the financial front, we finally joined the 20th century and took up Internet banking. Had to change banks to do it – get BPAY and Merchant facilities organised, and that eventually allowed us to reintroduce Web payments for renewals– mostly due to the efforts of Owen Cook who wrote the appropriate scripts and who spends a good proportion of his time looking after members.
  3. The Web site has been improved in many areas thanks to our very competent Web Serf Maxine Deakins. Trevor Frew and Terry Bibo have done a great job with the revamped 16 Bits magazine re-incarnation into an interactive Web magazine, and Mike Dinn produced a good Web Calendar and I urge members to contribute to it and of course to use it. I am also very happy that we have reached an agreement with the Silicon Kid to host his very good looking web based database which (when completed) will be a great resource for members and computer users in Canberra.
  4. The main monthly meetings this year have been varied and very successful thanks to Terry Yan and his willing helpers, and specially to the speakers from the group who gave their time and expertise to keep us informed. Thanks to Terry: – a repeat Flight Simulator evening is lined up for Nov, and a speaker for next Feb. And in between we will be having a Christmas Party.
  5. We joined the Australian Seniors Computer Clubs Association which also gives us access to $17,000 of MS software and training materials every 18 months, as part of Bill’s Ultimate Potential program.
  6. At the centre – the cleanout and sorting after the move still continues. 20 years of accumulated equipment has mostly been disposed of – but there is more to go. We are almost ready to go with the building modifications thanks to a huge amount of preparatory work by John Hodge particularly, but also to Rod Peters and others. We are lucky to have a builder member, Allan Baden, willing to supervise, and various tradesmen members willing to contribute their time and experience.
  7. Finally on the Plus side I wish I could mention all the volunteers who give up their precious time for the group. One unsung group is that of the Library volunteers who give a lot of time to teaching Senior Citizens at the Woden Library, I think they are on their 8th continuous year of support. I do want to single out Peter Watney, and Gary Potts who have been covering Tuesdays and Thursdays (and many other days) at the Centre, and specially Ann Byrne who has put in a huge number of hours there as well. And last but by no means least – Gordon Urquart, one of the great ‘quiet achievers’ who has been doing the membership secretary and many other jobs for years, and this year has almost single handed done the majority of the ‘Help in the Home’.

Now to the stuff that we hoped to do, or things that I feel the new committee should worry about: 

  1. Despite our efforts this year (and those of previous committees), group and TIP membership continues to decline. Perhaps the rate has reduced a little and we are picking up some new members. But I recommend that the new committee do a financial projection to try to find the numbers where we will start to loose money again – despite the reduced costs. I would have loved to find a volunteer experienced in PR who could raise the group profile within the Canberra community. The days of our regular radio show are long gone, but members make the club and we need more!
  2. I see that it was mentioned in the magazine for April that we “hoped that the Centre building modifications would be starting soon”. The fact that they have still not started is entirely my fault – I waited far too long to ask for help and when that did come from John Hodge and Rod Peters – I raised rather unrealistic expectations on when the work might get started. But hopefully it will get underway soon.
  3. Following on from the building modifications will be the completion of the training room and networking. The training room setup has the potential to be the group’s second biggest asset (after TIP) for members, and I feel bad that we have not run courses for so long. There has been some informal training run – but a full schedule of reasonably priced classes for all levels of experience should be a high priority – as should the recruitment of a volunteer training manager to kick it along.
  4. We held an on-line poll to find the best night for main monthly meetings. Mondays are really a problem as there are so many public holidays on Mondays and the end of the month is quite a variable as well. In the event – the first Tuesday of the month got the Guernsey, but unfortunately that clashes with the HAGSOC meeting (can’t win ‘em all). But the idea of the on-line poll was well received and the new committee might consider more of this type of consultation with members.
  5. Somehow the new members' functions slipped through the cracks this year – hopefully they can be restarted soon.
  6. I hope that we will soon have a simple on-line system for members to receive a User Name and Password (or a User name reminder if they have forgotten it). This will enable the member area of the web site to be restricted to members, and also the new committee to hopefully reach more of the members via Email. Many members do not inform the group of new Email addresses if they move ISPs, and they often do that several times after they leave TIP! It would be much easier to administer PCUG addresses for all members.
  7. It would be a great improvement if the Help system listing could be greatly expanded – we have a huge amount of expertise within the group, but the concept of ‘Users Helping Users’ is rather difficult if people who could help with a particular problem can’t be contacted. And if the list could be expanded it would really help centre staffers who are on the receiving end of most of the ‘curly ones’. So don’t be shy – flaunt your knowledge. Volunteering can result in a nice warm glow.

8.    An on that note – I had hoped to start a system of positive rewards for our great volunteers. Perhaps it could be in the form of reduced fees for TIP or membership, proportional to the number of hours spent working for the group. Something easy to administer would obviously be a goal – but it’s one that I hope the new committee will consider.

I have received a lot of very nice personal feedback by phone and Email from members over the last 12 months and that is really appreciated. As I have said before – I have received instructions from ‘she who must be obeyed’ not to continue as President next year – but I will do my best to provide a smooth handover and continuing background information to the new committee. So we’d better get on with electing them, but before we do – I’d like to give particular thanks to our committee members who are not standing for re-election this year, and even bigger thanks for those who are standing for re-election to serve the membership for another year. 

Thank you very much…. John Saxon – 4th Oct 2005

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And if you got this far - here are some PowerPoint slides I showed to illustrate the financial position:

These are the raw 'Bottom lines' for Jul 04 through Aug05

 

 

 

 

 

            But if you take the averages before and after the move.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And

 

 

 

 

 

So that's the finances in a nutshell.

 

And just in case you were wondering - here's the new committee who were elected unopposed. We should really thank (particularly) those with the asterisks who have kindly agreed to do it all over again for another year.

In my case, she "who must be obeyed" must be - by the group as well as myself :-))

Have a great year - JohnS

11th Oct 2005






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