 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group President's Annual Report George Skarbek |
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Overall this has been another good year for Melbourne PC User Group. We are
in an even stronger financial position than we were at the same time last year with much of the increase
coming from the Internet service. With stable membership numbers and improved benefits such as the free
Internet e-mail account that will introduced in the future, we have excellent prospects for the coming year
and thereafter.
Membership
Membership is stable at slightly over 10,000 members. This is in contrast to many of the other computer
groups worldwide who have declining member numbers. We are still the second largest PC User Group in the
world.
Office
The group is too large to be run entirely by volunteers and could not function well without our wonderful
office staff. However, the office still needs those dedicated volunteers who come in regularly to assist. Our
thanks for the good work performed in the office. The introduction of Bpay has taken much longer than
we hoped but it is close to implementation. We believe this will assist in making it easier for members to
pay their membership fees and Internet subscriptions.
Internet
The Internet membership is relatively stable with approximately 5500 members using the service and although
the numbers have increased slowly, the traffic is still increasing as members are using the Internet more.
The service has operated continuously without any problems and the few short outages experienced during the
year were caused by Internet equipment failures outside our premises.
To improve the value for money to members, last year the group absorbed the GST on the Internet account
resulting in an annual reduction of income of about $70,000. This year we have given more time per day to our
users, purchased new modems, more bandwidth and more computers for home pages, to be introduced in November.
This was done not only to improve overall system response but also to provide redundancy so that no single
computer failure will have a major impact on the overall service.
Critical services such as mail are already running on a dual processor computer, with dual mirrored drives
and mail is being automatically backed up to another identical server twice every hour. All equipment is
running from Interruptible Power Supplies. Additional features such as Web-enabled mail and news services
were installed.
During this year John Morris who had been providing most of the Internet Help ceased this support due to the
huge workload. That role has been taken over by a team which now numbers about 20 volunteers. I am pleased
that this iHelp team is working very well and the workload is able to be spread more evenly over the
group.
PC Update
PC Update production is continuing at its usual high quality and still improving on past high
standards.
Special Interest Groups
We have 39 SIGs with the formation of Berwick, Mornington, North East (daytime and evening), Essendon and
Bayside SIGs during this year. SIGs are an essential and integral part of Melb PC and we have both regional
and interest based SIGs covering a wide range of areas. All the details are available in PC
Update and I would suggest that most members could benefit from attending a SIG. Membership entitles you
to attend as many SIGs as you wish, so feel free to attend some during the year.
Swap Meets
Every Sunday there are at least two Swap Meets in the Town Halls around the suburbs, making eight every
month. Melb PC has a stand at all of these, manned by volunteers, and these members are responsible for
recruiting many of our new members. Well over 100 members have been signed up in the past year directly from
the application forms that have been handed out at the Swap Meets. Many more have joined simply as a result
of our presence.
For members who have not attended a Swap Meet, I suggest this is something to do, as you can purchase
computer equipment relatively cheaply. You might even consider assisting for a few hours on the Melb PC
stand.
If any members would like to offer their services for a few hours on a Sunday, once a month then please
contact committee@melbpc.org.au because the more volunteers we
have, the lower the workload on all.
Bulletin Board Service
The BBS is still a free service for all Melb PC members and it now carries the local Melb PC newsgroups as
well as over 20,000 files that are free for downloading. You do not have pay the Internet subs to use this
service. For new users who have not used the BBS, you can log on using the Windows program HyperTerm, found
under Accessories, and dial (03) 9699 6611. You cannot use the Windows Dial-Up Networking facility to access
the BBS.
Shareware
After about a decade of providing shareware floppy disks, the Webster family has stopped performing this
task. Fortunately it has been taken over by another volunteer and the service continues. The shareware disks
can be ordered for collection, for delivery by mail or purchase at the monthly meetings and new disks are
mentioned regularly in PC Update.
Training
All training computers have been substantially upgraded. Training is progressing well and many good quality
courses are available to members. Again all details are published in PC Update and I suggest you keep
an eye on the training pages for courses covering your needs and interests.
Library
Our library is now quite large and new books are always being added. The searchable catalogue is available
online in PDF format from http://www.melbpc.org.au/library/.
Loans for four weeks are free to all members and you are allowed to borrow up to four books per month.
CD Writer Offer
Although Melbourne PC User Group is not involved in trading and hardware, in the past years there have been
occasional special offers made to members, where we could use our combined buying power to get the right
price for something of general interest. This year we offered a CD-Writer to members at a price lower than
that generally available at the time. This was a considerable success with nearly 400 units purchased. The
group made virtually no profit as the objective was to make available to members a quality backup device at
the best possible price.
In concluding I thank the hundreds of volunteers who make Melb PC such an active and worthwhile User Group.
Without your involvement we could not exist. Thank you all.
Reprinted from the November 2001 issue of PC Update, the
magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
