SUN CITY COMPUTER CLUB

SUN CITY COMPUTER CLUB

EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING

May 4, 2006, 9:00 aM

CyberCenter Meeting Room

The Meeting was called to order at 9:00 A.M. by Dick Smith, President.

Present:

Peter Roll, Founder
Dick Smith, President
Dick Doane, Vice-President
Dave Hanna, Communications Director
Don Snapp, CyberCenter Director
Grady Manley, Training Director
Linda Walke, Secretary
Gael Miller, Past President

Absent

Linda Shanhouse, Treasurer
Peggy Uselton, Membership Director
Rex Davenport, Programs Director
Nelda McQuary, Special Interest Groups Director

Approval of Minutes

A motion was made by Dick Smith on April 12, 2006 to accept by e-vote and publish on the Computer Club web site the revised minutes of the April 6, 2006 Board Meeting. The motion was seconded and passed by e-vote.

Financial Report

Linda Shanhouse presented by email the March and April, 2006 Financial Reports. A motion was made by Gael Miller and seconded by Don Snapp to accept the two reports. The motion passed. The Financial Reports will be filed for audit.

DISCUSSION OF DIRECTORS’ REPORTS RECEIVED BY E-MAIL

Communications - Dave Hanna

Gene Uselton will be on vacation until about May 21. Dave will be doing the Weekly updates and the SIG meeting note posting for the next three weeks. Please send any available input for these items to him.

File storage space required on the Computer Club Web server is increasing rapidly primarily due to presenters using Adobe .pdf format for their presentation notes. They are averaging 1.0-1.5 MBytes per presentation. The .pdf files look good and they are smaller than the files would be if a PowerPoint presentation is saved as HTML.

The Mentor Form has been posted on the Computer Club website. It is set up to go to all mentors. Any of them may accept the job. It is hoped this will keep the back log of requests for help cleared. To aid in filtering possible SPAM, requests must come from an email address attached to a member’s record.

CyberCenter - Don Snapp

We are rapidly approaching the July opening of the expanded ballroom. Presently there is not a safe way of transporting the TANK to the ballroom for the Monday meetings each week. As a piece of information, attached is an itemized list of costs for the TANK. A number of presenters are pleased with the unit as it is a lot faster than a laptop, has additional capabilities and is always ready to go in a Meeting Room or elsewhere in the Center.

Don has been conversing off and on with Tina about safely storing a similar unit in the ballroom. She advises that there is probably no storage space available. Thus we must bring our equipment over to the ballroom. It appears that we will be back to a laptop. Don asked for board approval to acquire a new laptop with plenty of power, USB connections, etc., for use in the ballroom. Our current unit is ok for awhile, but is wearing out and lacks a few items.

A chair in the lab, L7-Tina, was reported as not working. It cannot be raised to various heights. Don pulled the chair and put it temporarily in the Meeting Room. In addition, he took the 4 black chairs used in the Workroom and Meeting Room and placed them at L1, L2, L7, L8 locations. The chairs he removed took the place of the chairs that were moved. There are several other chairs that are showing wear and tear and should be replaced as well. Additionally he asked for

Board approval to acquire 10 new chairs.

A motion was made by Peter Roll and seconded by Gael Miller to authorize Don to purchase up to 10 chairs, at a maximum cost of $1,100 to replace those worn and damaged in the CyberCenter. The motion passed.

Membership - Peggy Uselton

The number of club members as of April 30, 2006                             1,882

The number of new members who joined in April, 2006                         53

The total number of new members who have joined in 2006                 284

We now have 93.4% of 2005’s membership.

A New Member Reception will be held May 23 in Meeting Rooms 3 & 4 from 9:30 – 11:00 am . No classes are scheduled, but the Kaffee Klatch SIG is on the Meeting Calendar for 10:00 am that morning.

During Peggy’s absence the first part of May, Janet Lull will be processing the checks, and Barbara Resnick will send out the Welcome Letters to new members and the Invitations for the New Member Reception.

Programs - Rex Davenport

Programs scheduled through the end of July are listed in the April Computer Club Minutes.

Training - Grady Manley

Classes and Enrollment

       Subjects                Classes        Enrolled

Basic Skills              4                  44

       Mac                        2                  10

       Genealogy              2                    7

       Graphic Skills          6                  52

       Total                     14                102

Income represented by classes in April             $1,065

Plans for the Teacher Appreciation Luncheon are well under way. It will be held on Thursday, May 18 from 12 noon to 1:30 PM in Meeting Rooms 1 & 2. Accents Restaurant is catering the lunch with a menu of King Ranch Chicken, Salad, and drink. Several local businesses have generously donated gifts for door prizes and I have prepared a personalized “Thank You” mouse pad for each teacher. Not all expenses have been tabulated as yet, but it appears that our budget, including the meal, mouse pads, decorations, thank-you notes to contributors, and a few other miscellaneous expenses will be in the neighborhood of $300.

During the luncheon I want to discuss with the teachers some of my vision for the future of our training program. Some of my concerns include:

Streamlining our registration process. This item gets the most consistent negative responses on our class evaluations.

Reviewing our basic skills classes (Intro to PC and Windows), along with our registration process, to be sure that students meet the prerequisites for our more advanced classes.

Providing orientation for our teachers to acquaint them with classroom procedures, equipment, network setup, file access, and system configuration for each class.

Enlisting additional teachers and assistants. My goal is to have 2 qualified teachers available for each class we offer.

Transition to Vista when it becomes available.

I recently had a meeting with Bill Buppert, where he described the advantages of a forum and blogs linked to our Web site as supplements to our training and mentoring programs. I would like to suggest that we invite him to one of our board meetings to present his plan for your consideration. We also talked about a possible class in Basic Security for internet and wireless networks. He has submitted a tentative syllabus for this class, a copy of which has been made available to the Board. Peter will contact Bill and explain some of the features of the web portal and how they would complement his suggestions.

Special Interest Groups – Nelda McQuary

The Digital Camera SIG - Marlene had scheduled a Dig Cam SIG shoot for April 20^th afternoon; however, the weather did not cooperate. As it turned out a few members showed up who needed help with their camera. That was an opportunity for Jim Bilbro to sign them up for Digital Camera 101. Marlene will be in Michigan May through September with Jim Bilbro in leadership of the SIG.

Genealogy SIG - Ben has requested that I secure meeting rooms for July through the end of the year.

Attendance to all SIG’s in March totaled 276 – the most we have had in one month all year.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

          2007 Room Reservations - The room request list is due to the CA office no later than May 22. The following dates and times are being submitted.

Computer Club 2007 Room Requests

Regular Monday meetings - Every Monday of each week from January 8 through December 17, 2007 . All meetings will be held in the Ballroom. Facilities requested from Noon to 3 pm. except for the meeting on January 22, 2007 for which facilities requested from 10 am until 3 pm .

New Member Reception - January 30, March 27, May 29, July 31, and October 30, 2007. These meeting are all on Tuesdays. All meetings will be held in the Atrium. Facilities requested from 9 to noon.

Digital Camera (SIG) - The third (3rd) Thursday of each month in the Atrium. Facilities requested from 3:30-5:30 pm.

Genealogy (SIG) - The third (3rd) Thursday of each month in Meeting Rooms 3 & 4. Facilities requested from 9:30 am to Noon.

ProShow Gold (SIG) - The third (3rd) Wednesday of each month in Meeting Rooms 3 & 4. Facilities requested from 9:30 am to Noon.

Kaffee Klatch (SIG) - The second and fourth (2nd & 4th) Tuesday of each month in Meeting Rooms 3 & 4. Facilities requested from 9:30 am to 11:30 am.

Hardware & Technology (SIG) - The third (3rd) Tuesday of each month in Meeting Rooms 3 & 4. Facilities requested from 10 am to noon.

Times requested include set-up and tear-down time.

The date for the next SCTX Computer Club Annual meeting was set for January 22, 2007.

          Status of Chartered Club Space Requirements Projections -

          The Property and Grounds Committee will tour the CyberCenter facilities on May 12^th to see the current usage and hear estimates of future needs.

          Junior Camp 2006 – The planning meeting on 5/21/06 will confirm what will be required of the Computer club to help with this year’s camp.

NEW BUSINESS

          Ballroom Equipment -The possibility of purchasing another laptop for use during the Ballroom programs has been postponed until more is known about possible storage space available in the ballroom.

          CyberCenter Chairs – Replacements will be selected by Don Snapp.

OTHER BUSINESS

The next Executive Board Meeting will be 9:00 A.M. Thursday, June 1, 2006, at the Sun City CyberCenter Meeting Room.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:30 A.M.

Linda Walke

Secretary