President's Message

This is my last President's Message. It is finally election time. Next month NOCCC will have a new president. Unless there is an unexpected challenge at our election the new president will be Herb Wong. I know that he will put a lot of effort into the office. Please read his editorial in this issue of the Orange Bytes about the need of our members becoming volunteers. It is time to step up and volunteer if your want our club to continue and grow. Remember, the club motto is “Friends Helping Friends.” The club was started by a group of computer enthusiasts getting together to help each other. There were no big name vendors to make slick presentations at the meetings with super door prizes.

In today's tight economy the tide has turned and again the big vendors are finding other more profitable ways to spend their advertising dollars rather than on user groups. We can still get vendors to make presentations if we can guarantee a certain number of attendees. For the really large vendors they require an audience of 100. We have not been meeting this figure for many months.

The attendance at SIGs is even more discouraging. It is difficult to justify a SIG leader to devote the amount of time necessary to prepare for a SIG for an attendance of a5 or less. If the SIGs are not of interest to you it is important that you give the board of directors some feedback on what you would like. If you have the willingness to lead a SIG that has appeal to our members the board of directors certainly would like to hear from you. Unfortunately one of our most popular and most recent Home Automation SIG is not going to continue due to an illness of the SIG leader.

If your idea of belonging to NOCCC is to sit back, occasionally attending a meeting if the speaker has a big enough name to attract you and maybe some good door prizes and then complain because the presentation was too much of a sales presentation or was too technical, you are in the wrong club. On the other hand, if your only interest in NOCCC is to attend a SIG meeting on your special interest and never attend the Main Meeting because or whatever reason you can think up, NOCCC may not be around to support the SIG that you do like. Or maybe, you come to SIGs on occasion and attend meetings but have never thought about becoming more involved with the club by either volunteering or possibly becoming a board member or even an officer.

In the past there were lots of complaints about NOCCC was run by the same people and it was easy to criticize what was done. Other positions were filled by members who had expertise in a certain area, such as editor of the Orange Bytes. After the experienced editors died, we had an inexperienced volunteer take over. Due to personal problems he was unable to continue and Jim Sanders, who had absolutely no experience in either editing newsletters or in using Pagemaker, took a chance and said that he would do it. Not only did he succeed, his has put out an award winning newsletter. Now it is time for him to put his energies into other efforts and he is stepping down as editor of the Orange Bytes. Who is willing to use their experience to become the new editor? Are you wiling to take a chance and try something new? If you have ideas about how the Orange Bytes could be produced by using a committee so each individual would not have to spend a lot of time each month please let your ideas be known and volunteer to take charge.

Another area which has taken a lot of dedication and just plain hard work is that of Ted Littman as Reviews Editor. He revitalized the reviews program at a time when other computer clubs were saying that they could not obtain copies of software programs for members to review. If you have followed what was available for review over the past few years you will have noticed that he was able to get review copies of many very expensive programs. And his job does not end at obtaining the software, hardware and books for review. He has had to write a column for Orange Bytes letting the members know what is available. Then he has had to lug the available review items to the meetings. Books are heavy. When an item is given out for review Ted had to keep track of who has the item, when the review is due, and then when he receives the review, he had to edit it. The program has been running very smoothly due to Ted's efforts. This has provided excellent review articles for Orange Bytes. But guess what? Members have stopped taking out items for review. If members are not going to take the effort to do the reviews, there is no need for a Reviews Editor. And, if there is no editor for the Orange Bytes there will be no publication for the reviews.

I would hate to see NOCCC disappear. There is still a real need for people to get together and actually talk to each other about what they are doing and what can be done with their computers. Maybe we need to go back to the concept of “Friends Helping Friends” and make sure that NOCCC will be a vehicle for this to take place.

I want to thank all of the current officers and board of directors for all of their hard work over the past year. I really appreciated the efforts by everyone. I also want to thank those NOCCC members who have volunteered, in any way, to help with the meetings. Eric Saca has done a wonderful job of reporting the Main Meeting for the Orange Bytes. For the past year, he has also been the volunteer to set up the meeting and to close the meeting.

Another member who has volunteered his time is Richard Miller. Not only does he bring the donuts, he sits at the consignment table and is there to answer questions. Cathy Shimozono is another volunteer who has been giving her time to the club for many years. Anyone who frequents the consignment table is sure to remember Cathy. She is very good at selling the consignment items and is always friendly and helpful.

Our treasurer for the past year, Doug Steiner, has done an outstanding job. The job of treasurer also entails being the club database manager. He has always given me the list of members for the Orange Bytes and the list of email address so I can send the current password to members on time, without having to be reminded. I really appreciate this.

Just a reminder, this month is eWaste Month. See my article about the change in the consignment table in this issue of the Orange Byte.

See you at the next meeting—of course you will all be there because it is the ELECTION meeting.

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Last update: Tue May 29 20:38:55 GMT 2007