 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Pres Said John Beck |
A new year is starting, and with it a new committee. It is really the old committee with one change. Ian Robinson has retired and John Drake, a previous committee member has returned.
All the items put forward to amend the rules, at the Annual General Meeting were approved. The only one causing discussion was the one concerning the increase in membership fees. However when put to the vote only a few voted against it. The item in the income expenditure statement, Net Operating Income caused the most confusion. This figure is what it is named and NOT profit. With the rules pertaining up to the meeting night, all subscriptions were due by 30th of June, and this with any income from new members or other sources is required to fund all activities until the majority of subscriptions are due in March '89.
Many people have gone into print to expound that a large membership is the key to success. This is not so in many respects. Due to a very rapid increase in our membership over the past 18 months, we have been obliged to have a paid Administration Officer, and rent office space. The larger our membership, the more the workload of the administration increases. Volunteers quickly withdraw their labour when it takes half a normal working week to complete their allotted task, or they have taken up all the spare room in the house with papers, disks, stocks of specials etc. Some of the mundane tasks such as preparing the magazine for posting, copying PD software etc. are done by juniors who are given a small payment to perform the task. I recall when there were only a few hundred members. The magazine was bagged and made ready for posting at the premises of Microhelp. It was a full nights work, but not many volunteers turned up to help. The moral is, if you are not prepared to help with the chores then you must be prepared to contribute towards the cost of paid labour. As the Income Expenditure Statement shows, Members subscriptions of $82,829 do not cover expenses of $116,857.
The main thrust in 1989 will be to improve efficiency of operation within the group as a whole. This can be accomplished by active SIGs. Two which spring to mind are a magazine SIG. The objective would be to assist in the publication of PC Update. Its members could become familiar with Ventura, Postscript, Pagemaker or whichever software is in current use. Members could be guest editor in a similar fashion to John Wilkins' excellent issue when David Jitts was editor. There would be a sharing of workload, and generally in group interaction many ideas foster improvements. The other is a bulletin board SIG. From discussion at meetings, and messages on the board, there are many people with expertise in BBS operation, but more importantly willing to help. Here again workload can be shared, and efficiency improved. The answer to full disk storage is not larger disks, as they will become full. Memory management is a better solution.
More training courses will be run in 1989, especially to bring new users up to speed. Our constitution reminds us that this facet is one of the reasons for our existence.
The Group now has an office at 12 Cecil Street South Melbourne. Al-though a significant step, it is only a temporary home for us. The office is small and is only large enough to accommodate the administration. With future growth it will be too small. The next step will be to acquire our own premises. As any financial adviser will say, it is preferable to pay interest than rent. We will require office space for administration, rooms for committee meetings and SIG meetings. (This will avoid the embarrassment of being turned away from St. Marks in December because they had their own activities and didn't advise us.) Storage facilities for our equipment, and it will be on hand for SIG meetings. The BBS and publishing equipment could be housed there also. To consolidate future operations in addition to secretarial administration as at present, there will be need for a technical person who will answer all the questions which are currently referred to people at their place of business. This person could assist with the BBS and magazine production in emergencies. Initially both of these staff members could be part time, with hours extending as circumstances warrant.
With our own premises it is more likely that Industry will recognise our status, and loan equipment on a permanent basis for general use or setting up a training laboratory. There will also be more power as a lobby group with government.
The location envisaged would be close to the City for convenience, and as most of our members live on the East side it would on that side preferably. It would be on or very close to a main road, so that it is easily found by strangers to the area. The building could be a shop, house, Church or school no longer required, or even a vacant lot to build on. Naturally there must be room for parking, and it must not cost a small fortune. If any of our members are in the real estate business and can give any advice, it will be gratefully received.
The Group has a keen committee with considerable expertise in many fields, and we look forward to presenting an interesting programme in 1989.
Reprinted from the Jan-Feb 1989 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
