November 2, 2012
The meeting was called to order at 7:44 p.m. by President Chuck Horner. See Lola Hunter at the ticket table for raffle tickets, door prize tickets, and 3" x 5" cards to write questions for discussion/answers at the end of the Meeting. This month's raffle prize is a Corsair 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive.
Nominations for the Board of Directors:
Chuck Horner, Sally Holt, Jan Fagerholm, Bayle Emlein, Bud Gallagher, Don Odle, Elsie Smith. The election will be conducted during the December meeting.
We need folks willing to help out coordinating programs and with publicity. Volunteers, please contact the Executive Committee.
SIG Announcements:
The Mobile SIG will meet on 3rd Monday in November.
The Spectacular Linux SIG will meet on the last Saturday in November, the 24th.
Presentation:
Chuck started out by noting how far technology has come. He discussed the need for changing how PCC does business, especially the cost of distributing paper copies of the Newsletter. Chuck reviewed three proposals by Jan:
1) Keep on as we have been, running out of money in a few months;
2) Electronic version only, likely leading to a drop in membership;
3) A volunteer prints and distributes a physically smaller version;
3.5) Ask members who want a paper copy to add the cost of copying and mailing to their dues.
Sid Jordan suggested changing the dues payment structure.
Andrew Tews suggested directly e-mailing the Newsletter.
Don Odle, concerned about clicking on a link, proposed sending the Newsletter as an attachment. Chuck suggested sending an e-mail reminder to go to the pcc.org site to read the Newsletter. That way, people could get to the Newsletter without clicking on links.
Elsie noted that Diane puts a description of the upcoming Main Meeting program on the top page of the Web site. Also that Diane maintains an award-winning Web site where there's no fear of clicking on a link. The Newsletter is generally posted by the Tuesday before the Main Meeting, often by the Sunday before.
Elsie pointed out that e-mailing the entire membership will be a burden on the person doing the mass mailing. This never worked in past years because members fail to keep their e-mail addresses updated.
Several people said keeping e-mail addresses current should be the responsibility of individual members.
The members present unanimously agreed that PCC go to a digital format for the Newsletter. A monthly reminder would be e-mailed to the membership e-mail addresses of record. The e-mail would contain a link as well as directions to the Newsletter page of the pcc.org Web site.
Sid Jordan proposed increasing the dues $5.00/month per person.
Chuck asked how people thought increasing dues would affect the Club. Andrew pointed out that most of the members are seniors, paying only $20.
Several people discussed the option of prorating membership dues to all start at the same time. Installment payments were also discussed. The Dues structure will be presented at the next Executive Committee meeting.
Elsie said that semiannual payments would cause too much bookkeeping. Dues should remain as they are, to be renewable on the anniversary of joining.
John Cordeniz would like more presentations about how to run a PC, basics of software. Sid would like more demos. Chuck proposed a survey of topics for presentations.
Thank you to George Kornbluth for taking care of refreshments.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:48 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Bayle Emlein, Secretary
