President's Message
by Dave Dockery
 June Monthly Meeting
Our own Stan Ashbrook was our guest
speaker in June. He demonstrated the workings of a digital image editing
package called UpShot. UpShot was free throughout the month of June, and is now
sold for about $30.
Since there was such a short window of
opportunity to take advantage of their free deal, it was fortuitous that Stan
was able to provide such timely help for those interested. Several of our
members have taken advantage of this great deal.
New Seminar Series
I've been promoting a new seminar
series. For several years now, there have been only 2 classifications of
educational forums for our club:
SIGs (Special Interest Groups - which
are ALWAYS free, but you must be a club member) and Classes (which are charged
at a rate of $5 per classroom hour for members and $10 per hour for
non-members).
Recently I asked for, and the Board of
Directors approved, permission to hold some seminars that are free, but also
open to the public - NOT just to our members. The advantage of this is that we
can get them advertised for free in the St. Petersburg Times if we don't charge
for them.
My belief is that as long as people are
visiting our Resource Center, some of them will end up joining our group. We
have a lot of interesting and educational events going on at our Resource
Center.
There are a lot of good reasons to join our club.
We got off to something of a slow start
when the advertising was botched on the eBay seminar, but the GPS seminar had
almost 40 attendees, and I expect the "Skip Tracing 101" seminar will do even
better. Hopefully, we'll be able to attract some interesting and entertaining
speakers for these events.
We absorb another computer user
group!
Recently, I spoke at a computer group
that meets at a nearby church on Keene Rd. I noticed a lot of our members there
and, jokingly, chided them for not attending our Novice SIG - which happens to
meet at the same time. Some responded that they didn't like having to make a
choice between which group to go to. That set the little gears in my brain to
turning...
I invited the whole group to join TBCS,
and they accepted. I took it to our Board for approval, and they formalized the
agreement. We're going to give ALL of their members 1 free year's membership in
our club.
They don't come empty handed, however,
they bring their projector with them. That's a plus! I had recently asked the
Board to consider purchasing another projector so that we don't have to drop
ours from the ceiling and take it to the Largo Cultural Center each month.
More importantly, they bring two
experienced teachers with them to our center. Many of you know my friend, Carol
King. She's been a longtime member and supporter of our club. She has
developed her own curriculums for teaching basic through intermediate Windows,
Internet, email, Microsoft Office, etc. Carol must be good. I say that without
ever seeing her teach. I say that because I saw how knowledgeable her students
are. I guarantee you that she's going to be an asset.
Phil Sullivan teaches Basic Windows.
It's an 8-week class. Phil says, "The way I describe the course is simple. If,
after turning on your computer, you have to ask yourself the question, 'What do
I do next?', then this course is for you."
I do want to be clear, however, that it
is NOT a hands-on course that will be taught in our computer lab. It will be
taught in the SIG room. Phil gives assignments that you are to do between
classes to help you "lock in" the lessons.
Now for the good news: normally, we
charge for classes (so that we can pay the instructor as well as maintain our
classroom equipment). But Phil is willing to teach for FREE - so there is no
charge for this class. What a deal this is. I'm hoping that many of you will
take advantage of this opportunity.
Security Fair
Once again, I've had to postpone our
first security fair that was to be held on July 20th. I want to thank all of
you who have already donated your time to this project. I'm the sole cause of
this delay. I have not yet laid the proper groundwork to get this job done
properly. Recently, I had a chat with someone who has promoted events of this
type professionally before. I became aware of how much better a job could be
done. Also, I've had some resources volunteer their services within the past
couple of weeks who I would like to involve in the project. I will re-schedule
soon and let everyone know.
Internet Access at the Largo Cultural
Center
As much as we love holding our monthly
meetings at the Largo Cultural Center, it's always been something of a
disappointment that the venue is incapable of supplying us with access to the
Internet.
That didn't deter one of our members.
Howard Gray (with an assist from Mark Humerick) put together the equipment
necessary to grab a signal from the Largo Library (done with their permission I
might add). Thanks fellers for the donation of your time, your expertise, and
your equipment in order to make this all work.
There's lots more to say, but I've once
again run out of time. I think we have a lot of really neat things going on at
the moment. I hope you're planning on taking advantage of some of the services
that our club has to offer.
Hope to see you soon at
either the Resource Center or the Largo Cultural Center!
Doc (Dave Dockery)
President, Tampa Bay Computer Society (TBCS) www.tampa-bay.org
President, Florida Association of Computer User Groups (FACUG)
www.facug.org
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