G'day
All...
And a very happy Christmas to all - and have a superb 2005. Hopefully we can get this edition out in time for it to be still relevant. Trevor sent me the first cut (combined Dec/Jan edition) on 6th Dec, and I've been dragging the chain ever since - sorry Trevor......
Frantic committee activity seems to be quite the norm
since we were elected. A quick count tells me that I have received 2,040
messages on PCUG business since 1st Oct, but that total includes some that I
sent to the committee list - but by no means all. I currently have over 3,200
messages in my 'sent items' folder waiting to be sorted {:-((
So although it may seem that not a lot is happening at times - there is a lot
bubbling along under the surface, and that should produce some more benefits to
members in the new year.
What is happening about the Centre I hear you ask? As you
will see in the Committee meeting minutes for Dec
www.pcug.org.au/members/committee/dec04mins.htm Anne Greiner and I met with
the landlord and they are keen to resume the training room lease. He also
indicated that they would offer us a discount on the main areas if we signed
another lease - but that offer turned out to be less than generous. Negotiations
continue.
We have made a submission for space in the new Griffin Centre which would be
substantially cheaper than the commercial rents in Belconnen - if we are
accepted, and the building is not expected to be ready before Sept 2005.
Yarralumla is looking very shaky and we have discontinued negotiations with
Watson Technology Park. But there may be some other possibilities around. If we
stay where we are - we will rebuild the training room setup into the current
area.
The PCAuthority magazine offer of a full 12 Months subscription for $3.50 a copy (as opposed to $8.50 in the News agent) finally got off to a slightly shaky start. There were some problems at our end with an invisible link on our main page, and a faulty server at the magazine's 'outsourced' subscription service which inhibited confirmation feedback for a couple of days. These are now fixed - so if you have been hesitating - give it a go by going to our main page at www.pcug.org.au and follow the instructions. You will need your TIP user name and password plus a credit card. If you do not have (or can't remember) your user name and/or password you will need the to call the centre. But it's now closed until 10th Jan so you may miss out on a self indulgent Christmas present. It's just occurred to me that if you are willing to give your credit card info over the phone - it might be possible to sign up at our very special rate by calling their subscription number direct. I'll check on Monday and let people know if that is feasible.
As you probably know by now, improving TIP allowances and
features is one way that we can improve member benefits without spending too
much money. So I'm happy to announce that the increased limits that we
implemented during the 3 month trial will now be made permanent. In brief that
means 720 Hours per year for $119 on dial-up, and 1.2 GB per month download for
$20/month (12 month payment rate) on Broadband. Don't forget for broadband - you
also have to pay the TransACT charge of $17.95 per month for a 256 Kbps
connection. But at $37.95 per month total - it's now becoming quite competitive!
But the really good news is that we are now starting another trial to
virtually double everything again! Dial-up to go to unlimited time (with an
8 hour session limit), and Broadband to 2.4 GB per month. We will also trial an
extension of Web space allowance to a massive 100 MB - which must be a record
for Canberra...
Unfortunately PCUG-DSL charges and conditions are virtually out of our control,
but we have been able to implement some very small changes there.
For more details - checkout Member Services and charges at
http://www.pcug.org.au/member_info/services.htm
We also plan to continue with giving every member a full Email account (with
limited - our domain only) web access. We hope this will have many benefits,
including better communication with our membership, really cheap Email only
access from members homes, and easy access to members only information and
offers.
We are very lucky to have 'volunteered' Terry Yan
to look after the main monthly meetings for a while. Many thanks Terry! To start
the ball rolling for 2005 we conducted one of our first on-line polls to find
the membership's preference for meeting dates. One of the main problems with
Mondays is that most public holidays fall on a Monday. Luckily for us - Tuesdays
just beat Mondays in the poll. The other issue is that you need to consult a
calendar every month to find the 'last Monday' or Tuesday etc. So we were happy
when the first Tuesday won. In all 196 plus members had their say and the
results can be found at
www.pcug.org.au/poll/archive.php
We are searching for better polling software - but there is little doubt in my
mind that we will run more quick polls like that one. Thanks to Allan Mikkelsen
for setting up that one. Once the University has officially confirmed our
booking dates, we will publish them.
Finally (and I've gone on way too long) I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Christmas again and mention that (if you are a real masochist and missed out on my Email net) - you can see what a real cheapskate does at Christmas time with a personal multimedia letter at www.pcug.org.au/~jsaxon/personal/christmas/xmas04/index.htm or http://tinyurl.com/62pfe for short.
John Saxon 18 Dec 2004