 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group CPU (Club President's Report) Charles Wright charles@melbpc.org.au |
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As I foreshadowed in my last report, we have completed the process of interviewing candidates for the position of chief executive of the group, and have made this pivotal appointment. An engineer by profession, John Young has had a distinguished career working for organisations like Caterpillar, Swinburne University, and a not-for-profit group called Eastnet. He has a successful background in marketing and management, has achieved impressive results in working with both the corporate sector and government, and has the sort of credentials that I believe can open new doors for us.
We've been fortunate in obtaining the services of someone of John's calibre, and I have great confidence that he will play a major role in making this group more efficient and even more successful. He will be taking up the position at the end of July, and I hope you'll all join with the committee in making him welcome, and assisting him in his efforts on our behalf.
The financial year had not quite ended as I write this, and I won't be able to provide a complete review of our performance until next month, but it appears we have had another successful year, adding to our membership, increasing our assets, and improving services to members.
Our greatest achievement, however, is not represented by an item on the balance sheet. Most members will recall that earlier in the year I drew attention to a decline in morale caused by a faction I described as "pygmies." I'm delighted to be able to report that we've emerged from that with a new sense of direction and purpose, largely because so many members chose to abandon the comfortable anonymity of the silent majority, and expressed their support for those who do the work of the group.
You can see the results reflected in a new spirit and sense of purpose in every area of the group's activities.
This magazine, for instance, is eloquent testimony. There are new writers, and a cleaner look.
Carol Daniels has made an outstanding impression as editor, and the recent workshop we conducted for new contributors was such a success that we're thinking of making it a regular event.
If you're on the BBS, check out message area LOC.2, which has been set aside as a
PC Update discussion area.
There's more paid advertising in the magazine, which means less of a drain on our resources.
We've established a larger meetings subcommittee, and you can expect a great deal of action in that area.
The comms team has tracked down the source of a higher drop-out rate, which followed our change in Telstra exchanges, to a software glitch, and that has been resolved. At the same time, with a new logging procedure, we will be able to better help members isolate the cause of their individual problems in connecting, or remaining connected.
We expect, with Telstra's assistance, to meet the schedule for rolling out of new bandwidth for our Internet subscribers, and shortly after you read this, members should be enjoying unprecedented speed, and reduced delays in logging on, as we increase the ratio of modems to members.
In our budget for this financial year, we've earmarked the Internet and the BBS for major investment. We intend to spend close to $400,000 in these areas alone. That includes new modems, new servers, additional RAM, increased disk storage, more software, more telephone lines, and increased access to outside consultants for trouble-shooting and special assignments.
It's always been an awesome responsibility for the committee to commit these sorts of sums, ploughing the money we earn back into increased services, and forcing ourselves to work on margins that would be regarded in the business world as dangerously slim.
We must constantly be alert to changing demand patterns, and find new revenue sources as others evaporate. That's an area that John Young is obviously going to be looking at very closely.
At the same time, we have to carefully husband our human resources. Because communications has become such a vital part of our services, our budget will provide for additional training, and sending two members of the team to the international conference of ISP providers in San Francisco. We will all benefit tremendously from the information they gather, and the contacts they establish.
That model of improving our human assets I believe is one that we need to apply throughout the group. Our volunteers tend to work in highly complex areas, and although they receive no payment, we expect professional standards of performance. We therefore have to be prepared to support them within the limits of our resources.
This month we'll introduce the $10 annual fee increase foreshadowed earlier this year. We've introduced a new rate for pensioners, so that they and students will continue to pay a lower fee.
We've had no increase for three years, despite massive capital expenditure. This is to some extent due not just to our ability to raise revenue, but also the ability to attract the support of some of the major players in the industry. The latest is Toshiba. I'd like to place on record our gratitude for their donation of a laptop to the comms team.
At the same time, I'd like to test how much interest there is in establishing a portable computing SIG. Toshiba is prepared to support us in that area, and I'm sure an increasing number of members are grappling with the peculiar problems that mobile computing raises.
I think there are many areas of interest that we haven't yet addressed, including professional and business computing, and I'd very much like to hear from members who would be interested in helping to establish new special interest groups.
I've already signalled the fact that training is one area that we are targeting for future growth. As part of that, we plan to redesign our SIG and training areas to increase the usable space and improve the amenities. We will be pushing ahead with that as quickly as possible. By the time you read this, the new PCs should have been installed, software will have been obtained and we will be ready to begin training in Win95, and also to increase the frequency and variety of our Internet courses. Our trainers have been undergoing Train the Trainer courses to improve the standard of instruction.
As with every other area of the group's activity, we plan to provide very high quality instruction, at very low cost. I hope you will all check out our offerings over the next few months, and support them with your enrolments.
Reprinted from the July 1996 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
