SUN CITY COMPUTER CLUB

EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING

October 5, 2005, 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
Gael Miller, Past-President
Dick Smith, President
Dick Doane, Vice President
Linda Shanhouse, Treasurer
Dave Hanna, Communications Director
Don Snapp, CyberCenter Director
Peggy Uselton, Membership Director
Rex Davenport, Programs Director
Nelda McQuary, Special Interest Groups Director
Grady Manley, Training Director
Linda Walke, Secretary

Approval of Minutes

A motion was made by Dick Smith on Sept. 15, 2006 to accept by e-vote and publish on the Computer Club web site the revised minutes of the Sept 7th Board Meeting.  The motion was seconded and passed by e-vote.

Financial Report

Linda Shanhouse presented the September, 2006   Financial Report. A motion was made by Gael Miller and seconded by Nelda McQuary to accept the report.  The motion passed.  The Financial Report will be filed for audit. 

DISCUSSION OF DIRECTORS’ REPORTS RECEIVED BY E-MAIL

Communications, Dave Hanna

Club's presence on Web Portal site

As I previously reported, I have revised and updated the Computer Club Basic Information on the Portal site. I tried to highlight the Club activities that seem to have the most member interest. It is written for the prospective member and hopefully will lead to increased membership.

I have also spent some time looking into how our existing site content could be transferred to a microsite on the Web Portal. My conclusion is that we could use a microsite as our primary Web site if a few Portal restrictions are changed.

·        Microsites are currently limited to one calendar and we will need three (one for meetings, one for classes and one for Monitor assignment).

·        The current rules allow up to five mailing lists per microsite. We need at least twelve mailing lists to accommodate our SIGs and other groups.

·        The Digital Camera SIG currently has fifteen separate Photo albums for member’s photos. I'm not clear on what the current limitation is on number of Photo albums per microsite.

While it is probably possible to fit all of the Club's activities onto a single Web Portal microsite it might be better to use more than one microsite. For example, if Training could have its own microsite, it would probably be larger than 90% of the other microsites.

The bottom line is that we can move to the Web Portal site with only some minor changes being required in the way we do things. This leads to the question of when it will be done.

I recommend that we delay the move until the newly appointed Webmaster is on board. This would allow the incoming person to set up the site as they want since they will have to live with the result. Most functions will be handled differently than they now are and there will be alternate ways of setting things up

CyberCenter, Don Snapp

The computer tables that were ordered on August 25 were shipped from the factory.  I hope to prevail on Austin Business Furniture to deliver them on Thursday afternoon, Oct 12th.  They can be stored safely in the Meeting Room until Saturday afternoon or Sunday when I hope to have a crew help take down and set in the new units.

Don explained the need to clarify through the CA how to dispose of such items since this is the first time we have needed to get rid of replaced items under the recent change in CA policy.

He said he purchased an additional Power Point Presentation Remote.  A Projector remote was also purchased as backup for the original remote at the Ballroom.

Membership, Peggy Uselton

The number of club members as of September 30, 2006                  2,180

The number of new members who joined in September, 2006                56

The total number of new members who have joined in 2006                 560

We now have 108.1% of 2005’s membership.             

We will hold a New Member Reception Oct. 31, from 10:30 to noon, in the Atrium.  I propose that we continue with the same program without any major changes.  The new members seem to receive it well. It will be interesting to see if the attendance is affected by the later starting time.

  Programs, Rex Davenport

October 2:              Protecting Your Computer -- Part II (Gael Miller)

October 9:              Jane Greig (Austin American Statesman)

October 16:            “How Did You Do That” (John Bosch)

October 23:            Suddenlink (Peter Roll -- coordinating)

October 30:            Cybersocial -- Fun Program (John Bosch)  

November 6:           Holiday Printing -- (Mary Ann Melton)

November 13:          Networking (Peter Roll)

November 20           “How Did You Do That” (John Bosch)

November 27:          Picasa II (Barbara Resnick)         .  

December 4:           Buying a Digital Camera (Gary Resnick, Jim Bilbro, Marlene Sloan)

December 11:         E-Bay (Nancy Strayer)

December 18:         “How Did You Do That” (John Bosch)

December 25:         Christmas Holiday (no meeting)

The Program Committee will meet on Tuesday, October 10th at 4 PM in the meeting room.

Special Interest Groups, Nelda McQuary

Nelda received a request from Marlene Sloan asking for the meeting time of the Digital Camera SIG to be changed.  After conferring with Cynthia Chapman and Dick Smith, the meeting time during 2007 will be the 4^th Monday of each month at 4:00 p.m. in the Atrium except for December when the date is changed to the 3^rd Monday at 4:00 p.m.

• No one has come forward to Lead the eBay SIG or the WebSite Design SIG, so Doug Willoughby has resigned as the Leader of each and cancelled future meetings. The SIG’s are dissolved until a Leader is found.  An announcement was placed in the Weekly Update for 9/25/06 and 10/2/06 asking for a Leader to step forward with no response. 
• All other SIG’s had scheduled meetings for September.  We are diligently trying to get each SIG meeting outside the Cyber Center Meeting Room to get their members to sign in on the computer or take a count so that we can have an accurate total count of attendance.

I have met with Jim Chapman that is offering to help organize and lead the Quicken SIG that we have discussed.  He has been working with Grady and already has a Quicken Beginner’s Class scheduled in November.

Total attendance to all SIG’s in September was 246 (not including the Digital Camera SIGs count).  It is a great increase over previous months.

Training, Grady Manley

September classes

            Classes        No.     Enrolled       

          Graphics         3           14

          Basic Skills      4           33

          Mac                3           12

          Total               10         59

The Cavalcade of Classes was a resounding success.  A large number of faculty and assistants were present and were introduced.  The presentations by Photoshop, Mac, and Genealogy groups were excellent.  Several interested members visited tables after the program to talk with the faculty. 

Balloons used for decorations were donated to the Children’s Advocacy Center.

Quicken classes.  A preliminary survey has indicated strong interest in the proposed Quicken classes.  24 people have responded as interested in a class.  They were pretty evenly divided between the 2 levels. 

A Basic and an Advanced level are suggested.  The Basic level could be taught first and the Advanced a month or so later.  The Basic class is planned to be a hands-on “How to” for new users.  The Advanced would be geared for experienced users, demonstrating special features--what Quicken can do.

Grady presented his research on prices for purchasing the software for the Quicken classes.

It was pointed out that as time goes by, some the instructors have requested various changes to the class registration program.  This is an old program that has been changed and patched over the years.  It might be a good idea to consider an overhaul at some time in the near future.  As the membership grows and changes, so will the type of class offerings and their registration needs.

Basic Skills Classes.  The work is progressing.  Class descriptions are being formulated and initial work is ready to begin in writing the curriculum.  We are investigating the impact this change will have on the Web site and registration database.  Tentative target date for beginning new classes is Jan 2007.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

          Election of officers for 2007 – The nominating committee of Jan Miller, Gene Uselton and Joan Keith will meet on Friday October 6^th.  The list of candidates for election must be complete by November 13. The slate will be posted on the website on November 15^th.  Voting will be done between December 1^st – 22^nd by electronic voting only.

NEW BUSINESS

          Cyber Socials & Annual Meeting - The members discussed anticipated attendance of the Annual meeting and cost estimates given by Sodexho per person for both the Annual meeting and the Cyber Socials.  Dick Smith handed out a map of the proposed table placement in the auditorium. The auditorium can seat 500 for a meal.  There will only be 500 tickets sold on a first come first served basis.

A motion was made by Peter Roll and seconded by Rex Davenport to charge $10.00 per ticket for the Annual Meeting luncheon with the Computer Club funding the cost difference.  The motion passed.

Not having anyone volunteer to be the Social committee chairman was discussed.  It was proposed that if no one came forward to coordinate the arrangements for nibbles and beverages, then future Cyber socials will not have refreshments.

          Budgets – 2007 and 5 Year (2007 – 2011) – Gael presented a draft of a Budget proposal for 2007 and explained the rationale used to create it.  There will be additional work done on it before it is sent to the board members for e-vote.  Gael Miller, Dick Doane, Peter Roll, Dick Smith and Don Snapp make up the Budget Committee.

A motion was made by Peggy Uselton and seconded by Dave Hanna to set the 2007 Computer Club membership dues to $10.00 for the first member in a household and $5.00 for each additional member in a household. The motion passed.

Peggy said that 30% of the Club members are “2^nd “members.

          Reserve Program – Peter Roll gave a concise explanation of the Reserve Fund program used by the CA accounting policy.  It is a method of showing the value of assets that are replaceable.  These assets are actually owned by the CA, purchased, used and ultimately replaced by the Club.  The accounting policy requires the asset value be shown on the Club’s Budget under Income as Reserve payback and also under Expenses as Reserve payment.  It is shown in a similar manner on the CA budget.

Peter is drafting a step by step procedure with example data to help future Board members adhere to the policy.  It will be part of the official records of the Club and will be made available to those who need it.

OTHER BUSINESS

The next Executive Board Meeting will be 9:00 A.M. Thursday, November 2, 2006, at the Sun City CyberCenter Meeting Room. 

The meeting was adjourned at 11:20 A.M.

Linda Walke                               

Secretary

Accepted on October 12th, 2006 by E-Vote, posted 10/13/2006