 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group CPU (Club President's Report) Charles Wright charles@melbpc.org.au |
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Take a good look at this magazine. While many members remain comfortable with PC
Update, it's become increasingly obvious that while we've been focusing most of our limited resources the BBS and the Internet this publication has been losing momentum.
One obvious, and financially painful sign is the alarming drop in advertising. Each issue is now costing us around $18,000 a month.
I nominated the magazine a primary concern shortly after my return as President. Unfortunately, because we've got more priorities than people who can deal with them, it's taken us several months to get our rescue plan in place. The first step was to establish a marketing subcommittee under
Michael Douman.
We ended our contract with the former advertising agent, and as I write this, we've completed a tender process and have just appointed a replacement.
In the meantime, Michael and his highly energetic team have been successfully signing up new advertisers to 12-month contracts. I'm confident we're going to experience a significant turn-around on the income side.
There are other problems with the magazine. My professional view is that its content simply isn't diverse enough. It doesn't seem adequately to cover the different interest levels of the membership. Each issue we'll see several articles from the one source, and scarcely any new writers coming through.
This month, I'm very sad to report, we lost one of the magazine's greatest resources, with the death of
Ron Wilby. Ron wrote about the issues that confront new users, and over the years, his articles have been an invaluable aid for members, and for many of us, an inspiration.
As I look at the pages of PC Update, I can't see anyone to take his place. I've therefore suggested to the committee that a fitting way to honour Ron would be to foster the spirit that he represented, by inaugurating the annual Ron Wilby Awards.
I'm happy to announce we'll be providing what is a substantial annual prize pool of $5500 in cash, not just as a memorial to Ron, but also - I sincerely hope - as a way of stimulating the interest and enthusiasm of writers.
We aim to present the first awards at our October monthly meeting, in four categories. The major prize of $2500 will be for the best contributor to the magazine for the year. There will also be three awards of $1000 apiece: Best Reviewer, Best Writer of User Stories, and Best New Writer.
At our last meeting, the committee unanimously appointed Carol Daniels, who's been acting as Assistant Editor, to play what will be a pivotal role in the rebuilding of
PC Update. Elsewhere in this issue you'll see an article from her which indicates her determination to build a team of members who can work together to enliven what has always been this club's most important asset.
We're also getting close to implementing several months of planning to rejuvenate training. We've approved purchase of new computers that will enable us to offer Windows 95 courses - which is going to be one major focus - and we're about to appoint an independent expert to provide Train the Trainer courses, and a quality control mechanism, for all instructors.
My aim is to guarantee a standard of training that meets community expectations, and then aggressively market our courses. We'll particularly emphasise Internet training, because in that area we not only have outstanding expertise, but also a support facility that is without peer.
Bill Ford has been working very hard with the training subcommittee to make it all happen, and although it's been a hard slog, you'll begin to see the benefits in a couple of months.
Despite those continuing problems, the financial health of the group is extremely sound. We've managed to increase our reserves to just over half-a-million dollars. That presents a new, albeit happy responsibility to those of us who are entrusted with the sound management of our assets. We can't, in my view, simply leave that money to accrue bank interest. I believe we should be looking at providing more solid assets. One possibility is that when our current lease expires, we buy our own building, and become landlords rather than tenants.
Although I opposed that action several years ago, when I felt the club needed to harness its resources to provide better facilities and create growth, rather than lock them up in bricks and mortar, we are now in a very different position. Accordingly I've asked our treasurer,
Bruce Elliott, and the committee's property expert, Bob Smith, to prepare a thorough examination of the pros and cons.
Our Good Friday Royal Children's Hospital appeal raised $3000. My thanks to all members who participated. Even more successful was the communications open day at the office. Several hundred members took the opportunity to inspect our facilities and tap the experience of the comms team to solve problems. It was an outstanding effort by
Dave Mitchell, Barry McMenomy, Alan Michelmore and the other team members.
Last month I put on the record my intention of dealing with a small section of the club - small in more ways than one - who I believed were seriously damaging this group. I'm happy to say that I've received close to a hundred letters, faxes, Internet and BBS messages giving 100 percent support to the committee - more, by orders of magnitude, than I've received on any other issue in my long history with the group. My thanks to all of you.
One message was from a Canberra reader, not a member of the club, who told me that his own group had suffered from precisely the same problem, and as a result, the President, Vice-President and Secretary had resigned at one stroke. I'm determined that won't happen to us, and if that means showing the door to disruptive elements, so be it.
I'm happy in the knowledge that by far the vast majority of members are equally determined. I can report my own enthusiasm is returning, and I can detect that our volunteers are discovering that their labours are not without overwhelming appreciation and support. The aim is for every one of us to enjoy our association with a group that even in international terms, for all our struggles, is simply outstanding.
Reprinted from the May 1996 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
