 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group PC (President's Comments) George Skarbek gskarbek@melbpc.org.au |
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Interact + IT 2000
Many of our members attended the Interact + IT 2000 show held at last month
and they all commented on the excellent Melbourne PC User Group stand. We were able to obtain the space free
of charge and Noel Peters did all the work of planning, organising and implementing. Noel actually
volunteered to take on this job at a committee meeting and knowing Noel (and his reputation) I felt that
monitoring progress would be unnecessary. Noel proved me right. This was a major task that took many
full-time days - above and beyond what is expected of any volunteer, even a committee member.
Ray Beatty contributed his professional marketing expertise toward enhancing the layout and provided
the dramatic large sized photographs to deliver a stand of which we could all be very proud. Dennis
Olsen and Bill Dair provided the transport to bring all the equipment to and from the show.
David King pitched in with the heavy work and was of great assistance in setting up the stand. Gary
Taig had enlargements made of some of our magazine's attractive covers to enhance the stand. John
Morris somehow managed to produce the large print signs at the same time as he performed his full time
task of looking after our Internet Help Desk.
Thanks are due also to some thirty seven volunteers who staffed the stand in three hour shifts over the four
day show and to our ever reliable administration staff who worked even longer hours to support them.
Some new members were signed up at the show and over 2,500 brochures were handed out. Some of these were
already appearing in the mail on the Monday after the show. In addition we purchased advertising on the air
by 3AK who had a caravan at the show and as a part of the advertising Noel Peters was interviewed and spoke
on air about Melb PC. This should encourage more users to join.
As for the show itself - in the last two years there has been a dramatic change, especially with the types of
exhibitors that now attend. In prior years it was referred to as the Computer Show. This year there were
almost no computers visible. I found only two vendors selling computers out of the 200 or so exhibitors. One
was Gateway and one other small distributor. E-commerce, Web hosting services, training, recruitment and
computer peripherals were represented.
Bpay
The Office is in the final stages of implementing Bpay in order to enable members to renew their subs safely
over the Internet. Your reference number will be your membership number and more details should appear on the
MOTD (message of the day) on our home page.
Receive Extra Membership
You all have received a copy of the new brochure designed to help recruit new members. Many members may not
be aware that if you nominate a new member and put you name and membership number on the form you will
receive an additional one month free membership. Historically there was a limit of a maximum 12 months extra
membership, but this limit has now been removed.
If you do not have over a dozen friends that you can join up, then contact Noel Peters (noelp@melbpc.org.au) and volunteer to help man a stand at one of the many
swap meets where you may be able to sign up new members. There you can obtain additional membership credits
for yourself.
Next Monthly Meeting
At Parkville on 4 October there will be a presentation by Kelvin Cording on using a computer to control home
devices, Lisa Hutton will be telling us how to prevent RSI and we will see a demonstration how to use Coles
online shopping.
There is also Random Access (your chance to ask the experts), the usual giveaways and raffle with almost
always several thousand dollars of prizes being raffled, shareware library sales, etc. Hope to see you
there.
Reprinted from the October 2000 issue of PC Update, the
magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
