 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group CPU (Club President's Update) Charles Wright charles@melbpc.org.au |
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Our last monthly meeting, which focussed on the Internet, was a great success. For the more than 800 members who turned up on a typically cold, wet, winter evening, it provided an invaluable insight into the opportunities and challenges of the global computer network.
Not all of it was planned, of course. As I pointed out at the outset, something was bound to go wrong, because every time one attempts to put this sort of thing on public display, something always goes wrong.
In this case the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server that we relied on for our live Internet Phone link to Washington, DC, and the president of the Capital PC User Group, Rich Schinnell, who'd got up at 4 am in his time zone for the event, decided to evict us as soon as we went live. For a couple of hours previously, it had been happily working away without a glitch.
But that is life on the Internet, and we wanted members to have a genuine slice of life in that world. It was a truly a case of what you saw is what you get.
The Washington link wasn't just an arbitrary choice. For the first time in the group's history we awarded our Volunteer of the Month prize to a member of another user
group - Larry McGoldrick, who is one of the workers of the Capital PC User Group.
It was Larry who designed the SLIP kit on which we based our installation disk. Most of our 1400 SLIP users found that getting connected was a simple matter because of Larry's skills and spirit of service. In fact, Larry's efforts denied most people the chance of appreciating just what a service he'd provided. Most users find that tinkering with TCP/IP addresses, modem initialisation strings, passwords etc is a nightmare.
We didn't get to talk to Larry personally, because he doesn't function too well at 4 am, but Rich was an excellent stand-in.
Fortunately the link came good long enough for us to make the award via Internet Phone, and for the meeting to appreciate what a powerful tool this program is. It is being used increasingly to cut ISD and STD telephone bills around the world.
A couple of days before our event, the vendors, an Israeli company called VocalTec announced a full-duplex version, which will allow normal two-day telephone conversations, rather than one-way, ship-to-shore-like communications, but we didn't dare to try that out. For one thing, Sound Blaster cards don't handle full-duplex communications.
But it promises a very cheap alternative to the POTS (plain old telephone system). Using our club connection, you could have 90 minutes a day of interstate and international conversation for the cost of a local telephone call and our $90-a-year Internet fee.
Organising that meeting was without doubt, the most difficult logistical exercise we've yet undertaken, and we owe quite a debt to all those members who performed an invaluable service on our behalf, either presenting or organising the event.
Our monthly meetings continue to be an outstanding feature of the group's activities, but one thing we are addressing is the presentation standards of some of the vendors.
In a couple of cases recently we've had to sit through long slide shows before we get to the hands-on demonstrations that most of us are interested in.
We're going to be much more directive about that in future. I've already had talks at managing director level to make sure that presenters are more aware of our requirements.
By the time you read this, I hope the committee will have voted to appoint an executive officer. It's become painfully clear that we can't continue to function without this sort of paid support. Yes, we've been highly successful, but we can't afford to be complacent, and there are many areas of the club's affairs that need to be examined and improved.
Although we're a volunteer group, most people expect a professional level of support, and with 8700 members, the administrative and logistical load is simply too pressing for our members to handle in their spare time.
My appeals for volunteers have produced a handful of willing helpers who'll be of great assistance, but it's just not enough.
It's also become clear that some of our committee members are so over-committed in the day-to-day tasks of providing our essential services that they simply don't have the time to devote to the general administrative tasks that committee has to complete.
In fact their efforts to perform those dual roles place intolerable strains on their family and work relationships, and the load on other committee members increases. We can't afford for that to continue.
The committee will be addressing those issues over the next few weeks.
On the personal front, I've moved from The Age to the Australian Financial
Review, where my columns will begin appearing over the next month or so. I'm confident that the Financial Review will quickly be able to deliver the best computer coverage of any newspaper in Australia, and I'm looking forward to new challenges there.
I'd been with The Age for just over five years, and in looking over my work there I noticed that my first column was about the Melbourne PC User Group. At that time, we had close to 4000 members. Five years later, we're fast heading towards the 9000 mark.
I don't think anybody would dispute that in that time, the services we've offered to members have improved immeasurably. If we are to continue to maintain those standards, and hopefully even improve them, we're going to have to look very closely at our resources and our administrative procedures.
Fortunately we're going to be able to make those reviews from a position of great financial strength. You can expect the next five years are going to be even better.
Reprinted from the July 1995 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
