President’s Notes from December 1990
Newsletter
by Gary Schweinshaupt
This
is the time when you get to humor me, as I ramble on about the achievements of
my administration. For the chronicles, I intend to do some of that, but I’m
also keenly aware that my administration was the benefactor of many people who
were generous with their time and support. I intend to elaborate about them
also.
This all started for me the May 1988
meeting when I decided to offer my services as editor of the group’s
newsletter. At that time, the group was having some difficulties and I felt
strongly that one of the things we needed most was a strong publication to
communicate what was available to the members of our group.
In movies about small towns, we have
all seen what happens to the editor of the only newspaper. They are usually
vocal and opinionated, and many times the townspeople figured this outspoken
manner was just what they needed in a town leader. I guess I wasn’t so naive
that I didn’t suspect this might happen. Like the movies, we haven’t run
the bad guys out of town or anything like that, but I hope we have made the
town more interesting to live in.
Notable events
I produced my first edition of the newsletter
in June 1988. We had less than 150 members then, but as was to frequently
happen in the next couple of years, I asked for contributors and someone was
there. Mike McNaughton agreed to write a column on Novice SIG News. From that
issue to this one, Mike has not failed to provide us with enthusiastic and
interesting columns, just as he has as leader of several SIGs and as SIG
Chairman.
Those days were filled with surveys,
meetings and hopes for improving our group. Many of the people you see working
hard at each meeting today were active in these earlier efforts to get us on
the move to bigger and better things.
A major organizational meeting was
held in July 1988 attended by Dean Ewalt (Dean also attended the very first
meeting of this user group in March of 1982), Lee Frank, Gene Gau, Sid
Greenberg, Ted McDuffie, Mike McNaughton, Skip Pape, Harold Shook, yours truly
and several others. This was the start of the new group that you see today.
Sid Greenberg offered to start the
Intermediate DOS SIG to provide continuity for Mike’s Novice SIG. Harold
Shook offered to head up Public Relations (which actually became membership).
Now we have seven or eight SIGs with prospects for more as members step up to
help get them started.
In my first newsletter, we listed six
leaders; today we list 34 people in our list of officers and committee heads.
Participation makes a difference.
In October 1988 the first regular
meeting of the Executive Committee was held, and still is today the main
organizational assembly of your officers and interested members. Eight members
attended then and we have continued to have 8-12 members attend each meeting
since.
In November, Skip Pape was elected
president, I as Vice-President, Allen Ocker was Secretary, Gene Gau was
Treasurer and Mike McNaughton was Director. The "New Deal" started.
We had 188 members.
Through all of this, Bart Koslow was
the Head Librarian, he started as Librarian in the Manatee group when the
Sanyo group disbanded. He then became joint librarian for both groups. For
those that don’t remember, the Sarasota (Manasota) group gave copies of its
entire library to the Manatee group to help it get its library started. The
first month I listed librarians in the newsletter we had five, including Bart.
Today we have fourteen. Bart has also been a regular contributor to the
newsletter with his library updates.
In December, we had our first holiday
social. For this one and the one in December ‘89, Karen O’Brien did a
great job with refreshments.
In January, Lee Frank made his first
entry as a columnist in the newsletter. In May, he was to start his
interesting and informative series "Captain Caution." Now he writes
"Mr. Goodbyte." Dean Ewalt also started with his regular articles,
always thought provoking and knowledgeable. Many user group newsletters
around the country are not as fortunate as we in having regular contributors
like Lee and Dean.
In February, Norm Cohen did his first
review of tax preparation software, which he repeated in March of ‘90; we
hope he will continue the tradition this year.
March was to mark our first Flea
Market (now silent auction). It was also the month that Marshall DuBois began
leading the Intermediate DOS SIG. Marshall contributed on a regular basis,
putting on a main presentation one month on telecommunications, and today is
SIG leader for the Basic Programming/Telecommunications SIG.
In April, Ted McDuffie started as
Member Database Manager. Ted has provided us with interesting analyses on our
database and has initiated programs to follow-up on new members, in an effort
to find out why we lose some of our new members. We have had two or three
surveys that were sent to the entire membership and Ted was the one that
handled the bulk of the effort to get this information in the database and
present us with the results. This job includes preparing our mailing labels,
and Ted has more than one time assisted with preparing the newsletter for the
post office, Corkie Buehler did the post office preparation most of the time.
Ted, at my request, almost single-handedly, prepared the update of the group’s
by-laws. He was also the chairman of the ExpoTech booth held at Robarts this
year, where his group recruited something like forty new members. Ted is like
many of the members already mentioned, always ready to contribute to the good
of the group.
It was in 1989 that we purchased the
projection system, the 9-foot screen that is in the cafeteria, the overhead
projector and the LCD projection panel. Welcome additions, this year there is
talk about a new computer.
In addition to all the other things
Gene Gau was responsible for, in October he was the main presentation giving
us an indepth view of Andrew Tobias’ Managing Your Money. But, this extra
effort is nothing new for Gene. He has been on nominating committees, he
initiated a program to follow-up on members that had not renewed their
memberships, and is always around when something needs to be done.
In November I designed the brochure
describing our group and telling about user groups in general. We distributed
them to various businesses, schools, libraries, etc. This was very successful
for recruiting members, has been redesigned with a membership form and will
be redesigned again for the next printing. All totaled we have distributed
over 4,000 of these brochures.
Another group of people that often
are not remembered for the difficult job that they do is the nominating
committees. For the 1990 election when I became president, Ellen Newell
chaired the committee with Lee Frank, Ted McDuffie and Mike McNaughton. In
addition to officer and directors, her committee also tied down several of the
SIG leaders and committee chairman, most of them remaining with my
administration throughout the year. Putting the right team together certainly
made my whole year. This is a much more difficult job than most realize. This
year the committee was chaired by Gene Gau; members were Lee Frank, Ted
McDuffie and Dean Ewalt (heard of any of these people before?).
One of the first things I did as
president was join the Association of PC Users Groups. Looking back on what I
have gotten from them and what they have contributed in the way of contact
with other groups, I consider this one of the more beneficial organizational
things we have done. I wish all user group officers could attend the summits
they hold at the two Comdex’s each year. The gatherings are reaching the
validity of some of the professional organizations. With the help of APCUG,
user groups stand a distinct possibility of being the single biggest force in
training and information for the business computer users. In the future, I see
businesses sending their employees to a user group to learn how to more
efficiently use their systems and to help them stay current with advances in
hardware and software. I know you will be hearing more about APCUG.
In December ‘89 our silent auction
went much better, I think because we were much better prepared. The room was
full of items that members wanted to sell or trade, from diskette storage to
full computer systems.
At that meeting, Skip Pape invited
all the past presidents. We had an article by each of them in the newsletter
and presented them with plaques. I got a real kick out of that.
Officers for 1990 were myself as
President, Bart Koslow as Vice-President, Ellen Newell as Secretary, Gene Gau
as Treasurer, Dean Ewalt as Director, Mike McNaughton as Director and Skip
Pape as Director/Past-president (first year for this position and the second
regular director, it was part of the by-law changes). These people have been a
tremendous help to me, I can’t thank them enough for their support.
We started 1990 with 277 members, at
last count we had 378 members. We have grown about 100 members each year since
Skip and I started the "New Deal".
In June I went to Comdex/Spring in
Atlanta and represented our group in the APCUG Summit talks. Really quite
enjoyable meeting leaders from some of the 150 groups that are members of
APCUG. I brought back many ideas that we could put to good use in our group
and in the SunCoast Conference, that I had already organized before attending
the summit.
In July we were represented in a
booth at ExpoTech at the Robarts Area. About 5,000 people came through the
gate, many of them learning about us for the first time. Some forty of them
joined us as a direct result of this effort, who knows the total effect.
July was also the inaugural meeting
of the SunCoast PC User Group Conference. A labor of love, I guess you could
say. It took me about five months from conception to this first meeting, but I
had a strong feeling that if regional groups could get together, we could
learn a great deal from each other. I was right! This meeting was so
successful that another has been held since, with the next one planned for
April 1991. There are now 13 groups in the conference representing more than
3,000 user group members from Orlando to St. Petersburg to Fort Myers. (Note:
The SunCoast PC User Group Conference became the Florida Association of PC
Users Groups in 1993 and membership now includes 46 Florida member groups <http://facug.org>.)
We are now taking advertising in our
newsletter and Bart Koslow has our application for non-profit status well
under way. Purchases of new hardware is being discussed and new meeting places
are being investigated. Even with all of this action taking place, Bart is
talking only about stepping up our efforts. This next year should provide ever
more excitement for the members.
As we start our tenth year, I
encourage you to join Bart and his new administration in their efforts to
continue to improve our group. They are doing it for you, pitch in and help if
you can.
Finally, thank you all for your support and your
patience. To those I left out or over looked, please know that I have
appreciated your efforts.
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