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

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