The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group President's Annual Report Lyn Goodall president@melbpc.org.au |
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This has been another challenging and interesting year. For much of the time
we've been operating without the full complement
of active committee members needed to manage the group effectively. For a
variety of reasons we've experienced resignations, but in the main we've been
able to fill the casual vacancies that resulted.
As the end of this year approached we knew that at least six or seven members
would not be standing again. This is a large spill by anyone's reckoning
especially when
two key roles such as the President's and Secretary's roles were amongst those
to be vacated. We identified a few people who we thought might be interested but
as can be seen by the nominations put forward this year only
four people have nominated. This is very disappointing and something the new
committee will need to address as a
top priority from day one.
There's no doubt that being a committee member means that you commit a fair
amount of your time, especially those that take on the executive roles. You also
need to be able to put forward well developed ideas, gain support from
other committee members, negotiate, deal with conflict and conflicting
priorities, make decisions based on research, take ownership of initiatives and
ensure that you see tasks through - reporting back to committee on progress -
and in short, manage your portfolio to the best of your ability. My thanks go to
all committee members for the volunteer work that they do - we cannot
operate efficiently without them.
There will be no need for an election at this year's AGM, as no positions were
contested. Executive positions vacant include the Treasurer and Secretary - two
vital roles for the group to function effectively. My thanks go to Doug Brooke
our Returning Officer for presiding over the proceedings.
Membership
Membership of Melb PC is now approx 7250 - our Internet member base has shrunk
to approximately 2000, with
2250 Associate members. With the income from Internet membership decreasing
we've deliberately taken the decision
not to increase membership fees again. We have instead managed our resources by
cutting back on expenditure and aiming to increase our income by looking at new
income streams. (see the Finances section for details).
During the year Sharon Kaye who played a crucial role in assisting with
membership initiatives, left us to play
a role in a family business venture. We have not at this time sought to replace
her and this is something the new
committee may need to look at.
We've implemented new ways to track why members join us and where they heard
about us and it appears that word of mouth is still the
most common way. Currently PC Update is circulated to Doctors and Dentists
waiting rooms and some Libraries and some new memberships have been achieved in
that way.
Finances
In today's climate it's
very prudent to show good management of our resources - not only the physical
but also the financial. The building
fund was established to ensure that we have the best interest rates possible and
it's under constant review by committee. We've recently selected Suncorp
(banking, insurance and investment services) to manage
our investment business.
We've just been able to roll over $300,000. Suncorp offers Savings and Cash
Investments, Term Deposits and Managed Funds to name a few of its services and
we've been happy with the results to date.
Although various people have been working hard to find an economic way of
establishing
a broadband service for our members, this has proved to be harder than
anticipated and to date no solution has been found. The committee is however
committed to offering the membership an alternative
in the future. As a consequence our Internet income was not
as strong as the previous year. As mentioned earlier, because of strong cost
containment the closing position saw an improvement of a modest $16,777 (35%) on
the previous year. Full financial results can be seen in our 30th June 2008
Annual Accounts, published in the September PC Update.
Performance to budget can be summarised as follows:
- Total income was $997,893 which was +$22,497 favourable to budget.
- Total Expenses were $1,028,761 which was +$37,859 favourable
to budget.
- Operating Profit/(Loss) was ($30,868) which was +$60,356 favourable to budget.
already started on maintaining the focus of good financial stewardship, decrease in expenses where possible and retain/increase membership. The committee also aims to continue offering our members value for money through our great support networks, monthly magazine and meetings, news groups, training, Special Interest Groups and seeking new cost effective services. The budget process for 08/09 again showed a need for decreased expenditure and increased revenue wherever possible. Our focus will again be on prudent financial management, whilst encouraging membership retention and expansion and wherever possible further enhancing the value we offer to members.
Following the departure of Sharon, the committee engaged a new accountant - Joe Harmelink - to manage our accounts.
Marketing
Normally the committee manages its marketing initiatives by setting up a Marketing subcommittee to work on ideas, priorities, costings and plans to submit to committee for approval. This year it has proved to be very difficult to do this, for various reasons. There has certainly been no shortage of ideas both from committee and members, however very few ideas have made it to reality.
Due to the construction of the monthly committee agendas, topics such as Marketing cannot be adequately addressed at the monthly committee meetings - there just isn't time - hence the need for a sub-committee. At a time when membership is declining and there are still too many Victorians who haven't heard of Melb PC, this should have been an area that had results. The fact that only $6000 of a budget of $38,000 was spent on marketing shows the lack of activity in this area.
It was at one stage agreed that the development of the new web site should be integrated with marketing and other initiatives, however due to a resignation this did not happen. Those members involved with the marketing and web site development initiatives will now need to re-group and agree on a way forward.
training.
The training web pages were updated the year before last and it was expected that we would see a lot of benefit from that. This hasn't been the case. Whilst we're continuing to get interest for outside bookings for the training room, we've found this year that attendances at training courses have decreased. Even with training course bookings on line we were approximately $2800 down on budget. During the year course outlines were updated with the Trainers to ensure that we were providing what our members and the general public want, however we may need to review how we actually provide training in the future.
As you'll be aware, Melb PC offers an extensive range of computer training courses, run by experienced trainers in our modern training facilities at Chadstone. A broad
range of topics are offered including buying and operating computers, applications such as Word and MYOB, converting videos to DVDs, installing new hard disks, building websites and setting up home networks. Our courses are scheduled during the day and at night as well as at weekends, in order to provide more flexibility to our members. Each student is provided with their own PC and all courses include comprehensive course materials and relevant catering. Courses are available to both member and non-members.
Web site
Work had begun last year on developing a new web site using Joomla! an open source Content Management System that was hoped would make it easier for a small team to manage updating the web site in the future.
With the introduction of new committee members this year, the work took on a new energy and it was hoped that the new site could be released by July/ August. Interest gathered momentum and the work of the sub-committee spread to incorporating membership and marketing initiatives as well. The new sub-committee decided that they would not only re-design the pages, but that they would support the development of the new site on a different platform altogether. Due to a subsequent resignation, the work on the new web site has again stalled.
On a more cheerful note, during this year the Message of the Day (MOTD) web page has been re-designed to become a page dedicated in the main to our Internet service members - The Melb PC Internet Services Page (Melb PC ISP) see http://www.melbpc.org.au/isp/ for more details. Our thanks go to Richard Solly for his efforts.
Interest Groups
The annual Interest Group Convenor's meeting was held on Saturday 21st June at Chadstone, chaired as usual by Bill Dair in his role as Groups Coordinator. Discussions centred around the future image and direction of Melb PC and how the groups could play an important role in attracting new members, through their group activities.
A new Interest Group was approved by committee this year. The Small and Medium Business IT professionals (SMB IT Professionals) group will hold their inaugural meeting in January 2009 - contact and program details will appear in PC Update over the coming months. Our thanks go to the many Interest Group Conveners for the voluntary work they do.
Monthly Meetings and Monthly Disk
Our monthly meetings have changed focus slightly and we have begun to see more "how to" presentations. Needing to understand the vagaries of how to build computers has given way to needing to understand how programs work and what you can do with them. My thanks go to Ray Beatty for all his work this year, in finding interesting presenters in his role as convenor of the monthly meetings. Thanks also go to all those members who play roles behind the scenes at monthly meetings and ensure the technology works and that raffle tickets are sold and drawn. Our thanks also go to Barry Martin for his contributions to the Q&A sessions.
The production, presentation and content of the Monthly Disk continues to improve and sales are increasing beyond budget expectations — over $3000 more than budgeted income. Ian Rankin produces the Disk and our thanks go to him for all his efforts over the last year.
Volunteers and Swap Meets
Volunteers are the lifeblood of Melb PC and the Volunteer Party, our way of saying thank you to volunteers, was again well attended this year.
Ian Rankin and Charles Adams collaborated, reworked and updated the best of the earlier "Swap Meet" PowerPoint presentations. The new presentation has been used at the Swap Meet at Moorabbin and will be made available for all groups. Our thanks go to Andrea Blain for her work with the Swap Meet volunteers and groups she has convened in Casey and surrounding areas.
Our iHelp team has worked hard again this year to meet the needs of our members and we're indebted to them for their tireless voluntary work. Adequate compensation for the expenses they incur is essential for both encouraging more iHelpers to join the volunteer group, as well as retaining the services of those who currently carry the responsibility of helping members with their problems. The committee is currently seeking to develop a fair and equitable policy to ensure our volunteers are adequately compensated for their expenses.
Our Internet Admin team have worked hard this year to ensure continuity of service and also to introduce new services to members. Currently there is a trial of seven-gigabyte email mailboxes in partnership with Google Gmail. This service offers a seven-gigabyte email mailbox for an additional email address of username@melbpc.asn.au, where username is the same as your current melbpc.org.au username. The usernames of these melbpc.asn.au mailboxes ("The ASN Mailboxes") are managed through Google API scripts on User Group computers. For more information please visit http://melbpc.asn.au/help/melbpcasn.
I would like to thank all volunteers for the work they do for the club.
PC Update
Our brand new magazine has been very well received by members. PC Update has a different look and feel to it and of course we have a new Editor, David Hague. David and his team design, produce and distribute the magazine and whilst the changed layout and presentation heralded a new approach, the team have always been open to feedback. David has visited Melbourne several times (from Perth) to introduce himself to members and obtain direct feedback. This personal, open approach has proved successful and David's team are continually looking for ways in which to improve the product.
The magazine has a great mix of beginner articles, reviews, tutorials, technical articles and it also takes a look at the latest trends and new technology products on the market. We're also finding that vendors want to advertise with us again. There appears to have been a shift. Vendors are contacting us to see if they can present their PC products and services at the monthly meetings and they're also wanting to advertise with us. Melb PC has an agreement with David that we also benefit from advertising revenue and this has started to improve since David has taken on a new advertising/marketing assistant. Good news for all!
Office Staff
This year we have managed to maintain stability in our office staff and this has enabled us, under Annette Meldrum's office management, to provide a consistent, quality service to members. Out thanks go to all the office staff, Annette, Cam Drew and Jacqui Mizzi and thanks also to our office volunteers and our new accountant Joe Harmelink for their valuable services. I would also like to thank John Swale who manages staff under his various portfolios.
In conclusion I would like to say that I have enjoyed the challenges that this year has brought and I wish my successor all the very best for the future.
Reprinted from the November 2008 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
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