JUNE 2014 MEMBER MEETING

Our club president Deborah was very happy at our regular monthly meeting today - and she made our members happy also when she announced a new course - "Keeping your computer happy"

Deborah was again happy when she presented 

 the Mug of the Month to Julie Nixon,
who was an Assistant Trainer and has
recently moved up to Trainer.

Guest Speaker Mark Young from ASCCA  ( Australian Seniors Computer Clubs Association ) gave an excellent presentation about Microsoft's free online services, People, Calendar, One Drive, Word, Live Mail and Skype, that are automatically synchronised between your computer, phone and tablet. Deborah happily presented Mark with our club mug.

John Hain had computer problems when presenting
his Video of the Month......

....but he tried and tried to get it working......

....and was eventually succesful in playing his
very funny Video of the Month, and then had his 
audience in stitches!!

Towards the end of the meeting I caught up with members, including Audrey Biddle. We started work together 65 years ago in 1949 at the Department of Road Transport and Tramways, Macquarie Street, Sydney, and in 1960 lost track of each other for about 45 years before meeting up again in the Parramatta area a few years ago. Audrey and her husband Colin were getting into computers at the time, so they joined our club and regularly attend our monthly meetings and various courses.

Trainers and Assistant Trainers met recently to prepare Term 3 Courses that commence on 14th July. A copy of the course listings and dates was included in the June Newsletter and is also available at the Office. However, bookings will not be taken until after June 25th, to give Trainers time to contact all those on the Waiting Lists.

A LOOK IN AT CRAFT MEETING & ANDROID PHONE COURSE

I called into the office to collect banking receipts and found the Craft Group actively making their cards, with the help of Trainer Judy.


The cards they make are so professional.......

I later visited the club training room where I found Club President and Trainer Deborah showing her students how to use their android smart phones.

Our Club caters for lots of things that our members are interested in learning..................

LEARNING ABOUT PICASA

Another day at Jon's MYDP Course, and now he is showing his students all about using Google's free program Picasa. It is good for organising your photos, quickly cropping, fixing poor lighting levels and colour, and getting rid of red eyes.

Jon stresses that Picasa does not make copies of your pictures - it records where they are, and if you edit them in Picasa, it records what those edits are.

Thanks to Asst Trainer Dawne, I finally show up in a picture, with students Lana, Siriporn, Ray, Ross and Keith and Trainer Jon - just before we leave for home.


 Dawne wanted to try out our club's camera that has recently been resurrected from a drawer.

Besides training, Jon has many computer skills.

Our office laptop recently stopped working and was replaced with one of the older training desktops.

When he was told our office assistants have since had problems with accessing the club's course Waiting and Bookings lists, Jon jumped in and spent time re-setting the computer to make it easier and quicker for our office assistants to use when attending to enquiries.
Thanks Jon, I am sure office assistants Elizabeth, Anne and Aileen will appreciate your efforts!

WEEK 3 AT MANAGING DIGITAL PICTURES COURSE

Jon Bayley today introduced his students to using Picasa, how to download the programme, and how to use its main features.
Jon was happy to see Assistant Trainer Dawne back to assist him.

Jon stressed to his students that Picasa does not make copies of their pictures - it simply records where the "Retouch" feature, one of the most useful tools for 'doctoring' pictures to remove blemishes or unwanted parts of an image, or for repairing damaged old family photos.

Halfway through Jon's session it was time for the afternoon tea break with today's Office Assistant Anne Howison.

 Anne attends to enquiries from members and also assists trainers by preparing morning and afternoon teas.....what would we do without our regular volunteers- great work Anne, and Jon and Dawne!

TERM 2 2014 HAS STARTED

Jon Bayley's Managing Your Digital Photos started last week, but I missed it as I was holidaying on the North Coast. 

His course is still very popular with six students taking the course this term, with the help of Assistant Trainers Dawne and myself.
I finally turned up on Monday morning to assist Jon and the students.

Students Lana and Jane are practicing how to set up and store their photos in relevant folders that will make it easy to locate particular photos in the future when they may have thousands of photos on their computer.

Jon with Ray, Ross and Keith.

They are all looking forward to next week when they learn how to improve their photos with Google's Picasa3 - a free photo organiser and editing tool from Google. 

For a free programme it really has a lot to offer. Picasa is a desktop software package that can be downloaded from http://picasa.google.com/ I use Picasa to quickly edit and improve my photos every time I download them from my camera to my computer.

Jon's course finished at noon, so off I went to Westfield for a light Maccas lunch before returning afterwards for our Management Committee's regular monthly meeting. For a change, I was the only John attending this month, with John Moxon overseas and John Hain unable to attend.

Here are your busy and capable Management Committee members --

President Deborah Martin, with her brightly coloured nails

Vice President Hazel Labka                                    Committee Member Judy Joyce

Training Co-ordinator Micheal Myers                   Secretay Silvia Vega

Committee Member Kathryn Akhurst and me, Treasurer

WITH ASCCA AT ROYAL EASTER SHOW

Our club was invited by Nan Bosler, President of ASCCA  to provide volunteers for the Seniors Hub at the Royal Easter Show, to talk about ASCCA and let seniors know where they can find a seniors computer club. Nan said most would probably ask about the photo competition Telstra was running as part of the Seniors Hub.

Jon Bayley and I volunteered to help out on Seniors Day on Wednesday. ASCCA's Development Officer Mark Young was at 
the Seniors Hub to tell seniors about ASCCA's activities and Telstra's photo competitions. and Jon and I joined him.

We spent most of the day helping Mark tell seniors about how to find computer clubs and how to enter Telstra's "The Show through my eyes"  photo competition - we also entered the competition, but didn't win a prize - a telstra mobile phone and $50 gift card voucher.......

......but Julie, a Parramatta Computer Pals member, and a seven years worker at the Show, did win the days first Daily Prize of a mobile phone and voucher! Congratulations Julie!

Our booth was visited by many seniors, country and Sydney based, and we told them about the computer club in their area. Jon and I also met up with seniors from the Parramatta area, so hopefully our club will get some more new members.

I spent my lunchtime break to wandering around the Show. My granddaughter Sammy had texted me to get a My Girlfriend showbag, so off I went to the very crowded showbag area. My lunch was two very tasty cheese toasts and chocolate milk.

I later found the District Exhibits where my favourite was the Western District produce tapestry.

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Our volunteering day at The Show was soon over, Jon and I helped Mark pack up the ASCCA display, and then we battled the crowds to get to the train station for our trip out west, where the three of us happen to live.

IT'S THAT TIME OF THE MONTH - Balancing the books

It's the start of a new month and I have to balance our books and present a bank statement, reconciliation, profit and loss, income and expenditure details reports to our regular committee meeting.

Thanks to our previous Treasurer Hazel and her detailed written instructions, and to my great off-sider Aileen who balances and banks our receipts every Wednesday, it is now a task that is easy, provided I take care to enter income and cheque data into our computerised financial app.  Thanks Aileen - you are a great help and save me heaps of time...........

It's great when I get this window congratulating me on balancing the account! 

But, when it doesn't balance, it's a lot of hard work checking all the data inputs, and sometimes receipts, cheques.

Thankfully, my data inputs are accurate, and a non reconciliation hasn't happened for many months.

After preparing all reports, I email a pdf of each report to members of our Management Committee for their examination prior to the meeting.

As you can see, the Management Committee members closely examine my reports! And that is good for our club.

I have just reconciled the March 2014 accounts and emailed pdf copies to each committee member. Next step is to present the accounts to next Tuesday's Management Committee meeting and answer any questions about the accounts. I am always glad to hear questions, as it shows the committee members are closely examining my reports.

Each month I present a summary of the previous months income and expenditure, and reconciliation of our bank and computerised register details, to our members.