17 July 2014

ANOTHER MYDP COURSE BY TRAINER JON

Trainer Jon Bayley's started his Managing Your Digital Photos course seven years ago and it's popularity with members still exists. This week was Week 1 of yet another MYDP course for another lot of students, keen to learn skills to help them to download pics from a camera, correct and enhance them, and to store them safely.
Students first day is learning a basic understanding of some relevant technical stuff - like setting their camera's time and date, aspect ratio, zoom range and other camera settings.

Next, Jon showed the students a short video of  Peter Blasina  - The Gadget Man explaining how pixel count is not the only factor in determining image quality, its also image sensor size and lens quality that pay a big part.

Next weeks class will be spent learning to use Picasa 3.1, a free program from Google that is simple to use to crop and brighten photos, get rid of red-eye with one click, and has many other features.


                                                                                                                                                                 

10 July 2014

WORKING BEE AT COMPUTER PALS

Every school holidays, our club volunteers are busy, busy in the clubroom and training room, - punching and collating course notes, printing and folding course timetables and Club brochures and distributing, tidying, cleaning, preparing course attendance sheets, etc, under the supervision of our hardworking Training Co-ordinator Michael.

It's a lot of work, particularly printing and putting together course notes for the next term.



It's also the time for Jon and Deborah to carry out regular maintenance on our training computers.

This week they both have been busy initializing Picasa in Windows 8, installing sample pics and stopping auto updates, as well as standardizing Windows 8 start screens and desktops across all training computers.

We have recently purchased Office 2013 and Jon put Word, Excel and PowerPoint shortcuts on all Windows 8 desktops and start screens.

And finally, Jon removed the old wireless modem, so we dont see the old internet service any more.

                                                 Lots of work for them both,.........................................




...........so after all the above work was finally completed on so many training computers it was.....................

......NO WONDER DEBORAH GOT EXCITED!
Great work you volunteers, your fellow club members really appreciated your work and dedication.

Thanks Judy for the great pics.


08 July 2014

ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER MEETING

Yesterday was our regular monthly Management Committee meeting, all present except John Moxon who found it hard to attend from his and Margaret's present time in Skagway.

Your Committee spent two hours discussing a full Agenda before finishing up with afternoon tea.







Our hardworking Secretary Silvia, hiding behind all her files, was kept busy recording the minutes of the meeting.




A suggestion from a member about the number of passwords we need these days, asked  "Is there a better way", has prompted action to request the August member meeting guest speaker Leonie Smith, the CyberSafety Lady,  to give us some advice on Managing Passwords during her talk.

04 July 2014

SCHOOL HOLIDAYS-But no rest for us at Parramatta Compals

MONDAY June 30
Today was Strategic Planning Day meeting. headed by our very busy and capable
 President Deborah....
.....and a small group of committee members, trainers, assistant trainers and an office assistant.who spent some hours discussing strategies for achieving our objectives, and reviewing progress so far.
I utilised some of the time after the meeting to finalise the club's cash receipt books and to bank the last of our monies for the financial year end 2014.

TUESDAY July 1
I spent the morning entering final data our club's financial income and expenditure for the end of the financial year, and then reconciled the bank and register figures, first time again for about the 20th time in a row. Now to find time to prepare the club's financial year ended 30 June 2014 accounts and to prepare annual financials and have them audited.

WEDNESDAY July 2
Another compals meeting, this time for a Course Review Day, with Trainers and Asst Trainers all participating in discussions to review the name of all the courses that the club conducts, and deciding which courses we should be offering, and how to structure the Beginners/Beyond the Basics courses in 

particular.
 Deborah, as usual, had control of the meeting and kept the group working on outcomes that would benefit our members and trainers.
Course descriptions will be compiled into a Course Handbook, with one A4 page per course. It will be kept at Reception and will be available to enquirers, and also be used to update descriptions on the website.
It was agreed that we try to cover too much in many of our courses, and there should be less content and more time for learners to practise. So we will split existing courses into Beginners and Beyond the Basics.

Thursday July 3
I started working on the financial papers, getting them ready for the auditor, and eventually for inclusion into the club's Annual Report and AGM. Spent heaps of time researching expenditure on Grants.

Friday July 3
A club social event for members, better than working on financial balancings and reports!
Kathryn Akhurst had  organised another Club social lunch for today, from 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm at the Sicilian Restaurant, 292 Church Street, Parramatta.  We had good reports from people who went to lunch there last time.  The Lunch Special included many choices for $14.90 and also included a free glass of red/white wine or soft drink.

Nineteen members turned up to enjoy word fired pizza, and to socialise with fellow club members








Boy, am I glad this week of Compals is over!