 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Eddies in the ether Dave Mitchell |
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Did everyone pick that I'd had a fairly rotten month last month? Fairly obvious wasn't it. Still everybody's entitled to get a little shirty every now and again. I guess the advantage I have is that I can spread the load with you lot as well as with the people around me.
Nevertheless things have slowed down a fair bit of recent date for a couple of reasons and I'm feeling somewhat better. Mind you, all I really need is one user a week who I can really let fly at and it tends to release all that angst fairly effectively. The disappointing thing is, I usually have more than one.
Royal Children's Hospital Appeal
As those of you on the BBS would know, and anybody who watched the Appeal on the telly may have seen, our BBS was used this year to collect donations for the Good Friday Appeal for the Children's Hospital. For 24 hours our BBS was shut down for normal operations and opened up for the general modeming public to call and leave donations and pledges.
This is the first time worldwide (as far as we know) that an electronic service like ours has been used for this purpose, and for a first time effort we did exceptionally well.
We ended up making $5584 for the appeal. The very encouraging thing was that about one-third of that total was from people who aren't members of Melb PC but who heard about it from other BBSs in Melbourne and dialled in on the day. The appeal director, Mr John Hall, was, and is, very pleased with what our club has done and we have made the commitment that this occasion was not a once-off but will be repeated from now on. The BBS team and the committee believe strongly that as the fourth largest user group in the world we have a commitment to the society in which we live to use our combined expertise in computing to assist in worthy causes such as this.
On that note I would like an experienced user of data entry systems to contact me about developing a system for the use of the appeal, so as to streamline the way they enter in the donation information. Currently it's done by pen and paper. We know it can be done better via PC and I'm sure we can come up with something for them. My number is both in the front of the magazine and in the Dial Help pages - so give me a call.
Grinding axes
While I'm at it, as far as asking for help is concerned, let me just thump another drum. A major part of what I do around the club via the BBS, here in PC Update, Dial Help and other stuff is related to Public Relations. It should come as no surprise that I'm part of a PR team that the committee has organised to raise the profile of Melb PC with the general public and the computer industry.
The RCH appeal effort was the team's first foray into PR and, in all modesty, was a resounding success, but what we need to do now is follow up. We need expertise in maintaining those contacts we made and in expanding our presence, particularly with the media people we met and talked to.
What I and the team need is assistance and know-how of the most efficient way of going about just this. We can only run on gut feeling and enthusiasm for so long before we run out of steam. Surely in the wide world of members out there is the expertise and knowledge that we need. Surely someone out there is willing and able to put a little back into the club to help us achieve a successful self-marketing policy which will take us into the position that a club like ours should occupy.
Thank heaven for little girls
It's becoming more and more obvious that the fairer sex have found us out as far as modems are concerned. Day-by-day on the BBS we are having more and more ladies (well, mostly ladies) log on and discover the joys of messaging, file leeching, and chatting via the computer and modem. Let me tell you some of them are hell bent on putting one Dirty Dave right back in his place. (Like, have they a chance? No!)
I find it personally refreshing to have (symbolically, if nothing else) the sounds of feminine laughter and wit (or what passes for it) brightening the otherwise stolid and serious world of the male messager. Mind you there is not total agreement within the ranks as to whether this is a good thing or not. I would suggest that if a certain Hints and Tips columnist, who shall remain nameless, doesn't pull his head in shortly he might receive a right royal clip behind the ears by someone of the female gender.
In the current climate of political correctness however, we have to make it very plain that quite a lot of the comments that flow back and forth somewhat cross the line; but they are in no way meant as offensive so if you have a TSOHF (translation: Total Sense Of Humour Failure) it's best not to enter into the conversations. I, personally, would hate to have to treat a lady like a "person;" the ladies on the BBS are a joy to have around and to look at them any other way would lessen their value.
Anyway that's it for another month so I can crawl back into the bunker and vegetate once again amidst the whirring hard drives and screeching modems.
Here's the tag........
Do you like moody girls? Depends on the mood.
Reprinted from the June 1995 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
