 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Editorial Peter Smith |
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Bumper Issue
As promised last month this issue of PC Update breaks all previous records. By happy chance this coincides with the 75th issue of PC Update. Since its first issue, in 1984, PC Update has been the leading user group magazine in the Southern Hemisphere. It has been a little while since the page count exceeded the issue number, if the committee's aims for the Group proceed as planned, it could become a regular occurrence)
The centre section, 32 pages of shareware/public domain software has been designed to be pulled out, yet remain stapled. The normal part of the magazine has reached 76 pages -a tribute to the authors, the advertisers and not least our untiring advertising manager, Laurence Blake. We have printed 2000 extra copies to distribute at PC91, as one of the arms of our active drive to increase membership.
Producing 108 pages, instead of 48 or 56, has been a challenge to everyone involved, including our Printers, List Print. Printing has been done in three stages, over a four week period. My thanks to everyone, we've all had a ball and (as far as I can tell) have survived without becoming unemployed or divorced!
Membership
As the cost of PCs continues to reduce, there is an ever-growing band of new users, who don't know about our group. Every member of our group should be able to spread the word - just think what you get for your $30. Suite apart from PC Update (worth $30 p.a. on its own, but then I freely admit bias)) there is the Dial Help service. Just one phone call could save much more than $30 in lost time. Look at the list of goods on offer on page 20. Consider the costs of the group-run training courses and compare them with commercial prices. The Shareware/PD library has thousands of programs, at $5 per disk. Even after registration the software is more than competitive with commercial equivalents. (An aside: in my office every user has a licensed copy of PC Write - 12 copies and 12 manuals saved us thousands of dollars.)
How will you benefit from increased membership. Then consider just one of the economies of scale, one close to my heart, PC Update. As membership grows, circulation grows, what we can charge for advertising increases and production costs (per copy) decrease. With a bigger circulation we can attract even more advertising - and the size of PC Update grows, so you will get more to read each month. (Of course you will have to find time to read it - but I hope that's a pleasant chore))
Personally, I find major benefits to membership in many ways: I gain knowledge from the other members, at the same time enjoying social contact; I save money on group deals; I have joined up my staff members so they can attend the Group's training courses. Not the least, I've considerably developed my writing/editing/layout skills (obtaining vast enjoyment) from my association with the other members of the PC Update team.
Shareware/Public Domain Catalogue
I want to pay tribute to the small army of volunteers who helped produce the catalogue, even though they didn't want their names in the catalogue itself. Morrison Hoyle, Doug Brooke, John Beck and Leon Cohen prepared and collated the raw material, Stephen Davey produced the cover and provided much of the clip art. Ash Nallawalla provided still more clip art and Paul Butler read proofs 'till his eyes were red.
Reprinted from the August 1991 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
