SUN CITY COMPUTER CLUB
EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING
September 7, 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
Linda Shanhouse, Treasurer
Peggy Uselton, Membership Director
Dave Hanna, Communications Director
Don Snapp, CyberCenter Director
Nelda McQuary, Special Interest Groups Director
Grady Manley, Training Director
Linda Walke, Secretary
Gael Miller, Past PresidentAbsent
Rex Davenport, Programs Director
Guests
Janice Manley
Approval of Minutes
A motion was made by Dick Smith on August 11 to accept by e-vote and publish on the Computer Club web site the revised minutes of the August 3rd Board Meeting. The motion was seconded and passed by e-vote.
Financial Report
Linda Shanhouse presented the August, 2006 Financial Report. A motion was made by Don Snapp and seconded by Gael Miller 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
Now that the new Web Portal site is "live" we need to review the Computer Club's presence there. We currently have a Basic Information Page that was prepared by Peter and/or Doug Willoughby. This page mentions the training class program, gives Lab hours and describes the Mentor program and includes a link to the Club home page. Please take a look at the Portal site if you have not already done so. It is at sctxca.org. The Computer Club’s information page was discussed. Some suggestions were to include photographs and perhaps the Club logo. All agreed that adding too much information might require future updating of two different places.
Many of the most useful interactive features of the Portal site are not yet available and it is not clear if some of them ever will be. These include on-line class registration, membership sign-up and renewal and Monitor sign up. We also may be able to get some help in maintaining our membership profiles in terms of email, phone numbers and address changes. A big unknown is how willing residents will be to make their personal information available to the CA to be included in the Portal data base. The CA is faced with finding a balance between attracting advertising support by providing access to residents and residents' fears about opening the door to unwanted advertising. Policies and procedures are still being worked out.CyberCenter - Don Snapp
Don has discussed the disposal of the Modulator and Demodulator that was used to route the Atrium meetings into the Meeting Room. He doesn't foresee a future Club use for them. John Lesesne may have a need for them in the Ballroom. Don welcomes any other suggestions about how these units could be utilized. He is preparing photos and descriptions of each unit for possible sale on E-Bay.
The same thing goes for the Peavey Interface balancing line transformer. He doesn’t think it will be needed in the ballroom, but could possibly be used in the Atrium if we have to set up our PA system in there.
There is still no word if the Ballroom Projector has been prepared for use. John Lesesne is supposed to call. We hope to get that issue resolved before Monday.
Membership - Peggy Uselton
The number of club members as of August 30, 2006 2,120
The number of new members who joined in August, 2006 62
The total number of new members who have joined in 2006 504
We now have 105.2% of 2005’s membership.
We held a New Member Reception Aug. 29, in Meeting Rooms 3 & 4 and had an overflowing crowd. I really appreciate the good work Rex and the other board members do each quarter to put on such a great program. Thank you, on behalf of the whole Club.
SuddenLink has announced it will be changing the email addresses of its users in mid October, which will require a lot of changing in our database for the 567 club members who were Cox users. Since SuddenLink also promises to forward Cox.net mail until the end of the year, Peggy proposed that we ask the club members to wait and notify us of their change of email address only when they renew their membership. To facilitate this, it was agreed we would begin accepting membership renewals in November, as we did last year.
Peter explained the possibility of having a program given by SuddenLink about their changes near the end of October. It would be a service to both S-L and the Computer Club. He will make the necessary calls.
Programs - Rex Davenport
September 4: Labor Day - No Meeting
September 11: Cavalcade of Classes - (Grady Manley)
September 18 “How Did You Do That” (John Bosch) History of Computers
September 25: Servicing Your Computer Part I (Gael Miller)
October 2: Servicing Your Computer Part II (Gael Miller)
October 9: Jane Greig
October 16: “How Did You Do That” (John Bosch)
October 23: Holiday Printing (Mary Ann Melton)
October 30: Cybersocial or SuddenLink (Determined later)
November 6: (TBA)
November 13: Networking (Doug Willoughby)
November 20 “How Did You Do That” (John Bosch)
November 27: Picasa II (Barbara Resnick.)
December 4: Buying a Digital Camera (SIG)
December 11: E-Bay SIG (tentative)
December 18: “How Did You Do That” (John Bosch)
December 25: Christmas Holiday (no meeting)
The next meeting of the Program Committee will be Sept 12, 4 PM.
Special Interest Groups – Nelda McQuary
· Doug Willoughby is thinking of closing the Website Design and EBay SIG’s if he can’t get a member to step up into the Leadership position. He has reluctantly remained the Leader of these two; in addition to 2 other SIG’s this year. He is in hopes that someone would take the Leadership responsibility. These two SIG’s have met as follows this year: Website – 4 mo. - 16.5 avg attendance; EBay – 5 mos – 13.6 avg attendance. He will send announcements and ask for a Leader to step forth during the September meeting; if not, they will most likely dissolve.
· I have sent a message to all SIG Leaders suggesting (1) that they send monthly reminders to their members of the upcoming meeting (some are not doing this), especially the ones that did not meet during the summer; (2) that they contact Gene Uselton if they would like to set up a Mail List; (3) that they update their web page, update meeting notices on SIG Description, and send Gene info for the Weekly Updates; (4) urge all members to sign in for their meetings, even when meeting in a room outside the Computer Lab; (5) contact me if they have a cancellation or change in their meeting date/time; (6) I offered help with anything regarding their SIG.
· I have been contacted by Jim Chapman, who is new here and also a Quicken expert. He is one of the 100 Quicken Ambassadors in the U. S. for Intuit, and he would like to begin a Quicken SIG. I have contacted Bob Culp and Delbert Burkett, who have taught Quicken classes and Grady about their knowledge of interest in Quicken. At the New Member Orientation, I asked who would be interested in a Quicken SIG. It appears that we would have a sufficient number of members that are interested right now. In addition we will proceed with some publicity that hopefully would attract others. Jim will be out of town the remainder of this month; therefore, we won’t take any definite steps until he returns.
· All SIG’s are listed below with the names of those that assist with different functions
E-Mail Address - After the @
Responsible.for.WebPage Mail.List.Manager add: sctxcompclub.org
AOL Gene Uselton aolmembers@
Beginners Gene Uselton Beverly Edwards beginners@
Digital Camera Marlene Sloan Gene Uselton digcam@
EBay Gene Uselton ebay@
Genealogy Dave Hanna Dave Hanna
Hardware/Technology Gene Uselton Gene Uselton hardtech@
Kaffee Klatch Shirley Polich Shirley Polich
Mac Kaffee Klatch Peter Roll Peter Roll
Mac Users Group (MUG)\
Media Conversion Dave Hanna Dave Hanna
ProShow Gold Ray Wright Ray Wright proshowgold@
Vector Vest Kathryn Bywaters
WebSite Design Gene Uselton webdesign@
Total attendance to all SIG’s in August was 94 the same as the month of July. We expect the attendance to at least double beginning this month.
Training – Grady Manley
Classes and enrollment for August
Classes No. Total Enrolled
Basic skills 3 23
Graphics 4 30
Mac 2 13
Greeting Cards 1 10
Total 10 76
The Basic Skills teachers met on August 28 to discuss restructuring of these classes. There was general agreement to change Intro. to PC 102 and Windows 101 to focus more on system components and Windows Operating System features and organize new classes for Internet and E-mail. Meetings and procedures are in place to implement these classes by January 2007.
Cavalcade of Classes Sept 11 - Cost for materials and decorations is estimated to be less than $50. We would like for the ballroom to be set up with tables around the seating area similar to the way it was set up at the Computer Forensic meeting. We will use the tables after the presentation for people to meet the teachers and ask questions about the classes. A motion was made by Peter Roll and seconded by Nelda McQuary to approve up to $51.00 for materials and decorations for the Cavalcade of Classes on Sept. 11.
Grady proposed a Curriculum Development committee be set up within the Training Department composed of club members who have skills in training program developing and planning, writing, and editing training guides. The Training Director and a member of the executive board would be ex officio members. The committee would be amenable to the Training Director and be responsible for planning and implementing new classes and overseeing the production of study guides for all classes. Members would be chosen by the Training Director with advice and consent of the Executive Board. This proposal was taken under advisement.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Status of the purchase of the new 2-level tables and the laptop – Don expects the new tables to be delivered in 3 or 4 weeks. The CA will be notified that we no longer need the old tables. A new laptop has been ordered since the “tank” can not be used in the new ballroom because of lack of storage space.
NEW BUSINESS
Scheduling media conversion classes – Ray DeVries, who does the training coordination for media conversion, would like to change the method of setting up the training schedule. He wants to use the class scheduling vehicle to schedule members in media conversion training. He will coordinate instructors, class times and member notification. Dick Smith will explore the scheduling set up with Jan and Gael Miller, Ray De Vries, and Barbara Resnick since there are still some implementation issues.
Social Committee Changes – Denny Barnes, who has headed the Social Committee for some time, has resigned. Several names were suggested for this responsibility. Dick will contact them to see if any are interested in assuming the job.
Dealing with Sodexho for our social events – Dick will meet with them to clarify the charges and parameters of their services.
Board Members for 2007 – A Nominating Committee will be appointed before October 1 with the charge to have a slate of candidates by Nov. 15th.
Member Voting – The Board was given a schedule of dates and deadlines for the election of SCTX Computer Club Officers for 2007. There will be a three week voting period.
Annual Meeting – The Annual Meeting will be held on January 15th.
Finance Committee Meeting – Dick Doane represented the Club at a meeting with the Finance Committee. The procedure for tracking the replacement of equipment through the CA bookkeeping was explained. The difference between replacement of old equipment and acquiring new equipment was reviewed. Peter and Don will compile an inventory list of current Cyber Center equipment and furnishing and their ages.
Budget planning for 2007 - Dick S., Don, Gael, Dick D.,and Peter, if available, and any other board member wishing to attend, will meet to review and revise the Club’s Five Year plan for equipment replacement and purchase. The date and time of this meeting is Friday, September 15th, at 1:00 pm in the meeting Room. Bill Leisey, a member of the CA Finance Committee, will be invited to meet with these individuals at this meeting or at another time when Bill is available.
OTHER BUSINESS
Chartered Club Officers Meeting – Nov. 29, 2006, 8:30AM – 10:00AM SCBR Topics will include: Web portal updating, Financial procedures and Operations management.
The next Executive Board Meeting will be 9:00 A.M. Thursday, October 5, 2006, at the Sun City CyberCenter Meeting Room.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:55 A.M.
Linda Walke
Secretary
Minutes Accepted by E-vote, September 15, 2006