 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Pres Said John Beck |
The Melb PC User Group was founded in November 1983 and when I joined the Group in 1984 the membership stood at 182, and about 100 of them attended monthly meetings. Now with close on 4000 members there are under 300 attending. Many do not live in the metropolitan area so find it difficult to be present. The first person I met was Felix Hofmann at the PC exhibition. When growth had reached about 800 in 1986 I was persuaded by Lloyd Borrett to join the committee. In those days everything was done voluntarily, and although income in actual dollars was not high, the assets and reserves per member were far higher than at present. A higher percentage than now were giving their time and energy to progressing the objectives of the Group. There was great camaraderie between members, and chores such as bagging the magazine at the premises of Microhelp were a time of companionship, and coffee drinking. As the membership grew so the workload increased and part time paid assistance was required. Later the volume of "things" increased to be greater than could be housed in people's spare rooms and under the stairs, so an office had to be found. This was a time when energy had to be used to solve the traumas of rapid growth rather than look to the future activities. In those days, with being fairly small, the interests of members was generally known. Now that in the last four years membership has grown more than four times, these interests although canvassed several times are not as clear. Consequently a survey is to be conducted to find out what you the members want from your club. The committee has formed a subcommittee to organise a survey, and input has been obtained from many areas. By the time you read this it will have been submitted for approval at the June committee meeting and will be published in PC Update. Please spend a little of your time to answer the questionnaire, which will be made as simple as possible. The more answers received the more accurate can be the planning.
In last month's PC Update was an article on where are we going, which asks for comments. Many of the points raised have already been addressed in last month's and previous pages of Pres Said, and the committee certainly has direction. Some of the comments in the article are contradictory but they will be obvious. I will make a few observations as there are some of the items discussed in the paper which depend on how you interpret them by not having the benefit of the background. That is understandable as Charles has only been to two committee meetings.
Looking at the income expenditure statement for 1989 published in the November issue of PC Update, the income from subs which is the only reliable base, as any other sources of income can dry up very quickly, was $95,625. The cost of administration was $40,924 the magazine $74,737 from which is offset the income from sales and advertising of $28,790. By the mathematics involved it still gives a substantial drain on resources.
The figure quoted as a third of memberships not renewed, covers a two year period, and about 1000. It was also when subs due were at a peak. Subsequently renewals were quite substantial. With a large membership base there is an expectation of non renewals in any organisation, and a stable base is what is preferred. Membership at the beginning of the year was 3809 and at the middle of April is 3707. It has been of this order for the last 12 months.
We exchange magazines with the Boston Computer Society, which has 40,000 members. They are housed in a substantial building, which
they own, in downtown Boston. With plenty of space for their meetings and training. They have teaching laboratories where tuition is available to their members free of charge. This is because they do not have to pay for the hire of rooms, and the trainers donate their services free. They acknowledge that everyone has to learn, and in gratitude for help given to them take it as a way of returning something to other tyros. If we were offered three or four machines for a training laboratory it would be an embarrassment, having nowhere to house them. However plans to increase the space we have at present by buying or leasing space will forward this aim. Until that happens there is not much chance of PC suppliers coming to the party. To disburse all your funds for short term benefit, especially if it is for little used activities, rather than long term establishment, is foolish in the extreme. Depreciation would also reduce the assets per member. The BBS has had problems. When it was moved to the office when Charles Sandercott gave up the position of sysop, experts were given free rein to set it up with multiple lines. However the experts lacked the expertise, and Colin Macauley and others had it operating for which we thank them. The committee take advice from the sysop on how the mechanics of the board should be undertaken. Alternative software for multi-user operation was suggested, but there were some drawbacks to what facilities it can support. There is now new software which was selected by the sysop for operating the BBS, which has had a lot of favourable comment by users. The committee has complete faith in his judgment. The siting of the BBS has been considered in all its aspects with the conclusion that it must be at the Group's location.
Selling PD software and disks, also modems and other specials is a service to members. If it was not so they would go elsewhere. Refer to comments in the PD SIG report on the benefit to members.
The committee would prefer to see more membership involvement, and is the reason that members are welcome to come to committee meetings, where their opinions may be expressed. This feature is not common in most other organisations. Although this invitation has been open for several years the number of members taking advantage has been small.
Model-specific computer clubs will demise when they are overtaken by improved technology and disappear from the market. As stated in a previous Pres Said, we are a Personal Computer User Group and whatever form a computer is, be it an PS/2, Macintosh or a Cray, we will still be relevant. By travelling to Regional SIGs with other members of committee, and with several of committee being involved in SIG activities, the opinions and desires of a section of the membership is known. The ones from whom there is no contact are somewhat of an enigma to us.
Charles is to be thanked for his article, and it is hoped that it will initiate a large response of what you would like in the future.
Sometimes it is difficult to service requests for some of our
activities. Things which occurred during the week leave the disk copier perplexed. No address on an order, not stating the name of the file required, ordering the same disk twice (do you really want two?), ordering files which we cannot trace, and giving the file size as the disk number. All of them have been solved, but at the expense of much time.
Reprinted from the June 1990 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
