Williamsport Area Computer Club Meeting minutes / newsletter - December, 1996
Kathy Kolb, President called the meeting to order, followed by an introduction of new guests. Last months meeting minutes were accepted as circulated.
Willis Beaver,Treasurer reported $90.00 in our account, having 17 paid members.
Committees:
Club Advertising I Awareness I Public Relations I Membership / Home Page:
Home Page News: Kathy reported that our web site has exceeded over 3000 hits on Sunlink. The total for the year was about 5000! http://www.sunlink.net/wacc RSAC was renewed and copyright / credits were added. Our new logo will be added soon. Our site listing was added to "Yahoo Local" .
There have been lots of visits and requests for the wacc-announce, which now has over 200 subscribers. Wacc-chat has 53 subscribers. We received Sun Gazette coverage thanks to Robin !
We are still looking for a volunteer to search AOL, Compuserve and ATT for local computer users to let them know about our club. If you can help with this, please e-mail Willis Beaver at wcom@pennet.net or call Sharon at 321-0659.
Newspaper ads announcing our meetings will begin in January.
A discussion was held regarding a request to maintain a club directory of members addresses and phone numbers. It was determined that only members will have access to this information.
Bylaws, etc.: Kathy reported that Joe Smertneck had sent her the application form to obtain an EIN#.
Computerfest: Dave Mecone reported information on upcoming Computerfests. There will be one in Allentown next weekend by the same company (MarketPro). They have shows all over the country. You can get their schedule at http://www.marketpro.com/. Admission is usually $5 or $6 at the door, or you can get a membership $25 for 1 year, $35 for 2 years.
Kathy reported that the Chamber of Commerce is considering hosting a high tech expo in the future. We could possibly have our Computerfest in conjunction with that. Retailers would need to be approached, which could be quite a feat.
Computer Recycling: (giving old computers new homes): SCRONGE Project information will be the program for next month's meeting. Tina Prosseda donated an IBM AT, (2) Printers, Software and a CD ROM Drive to the club. It may have already found a home, John suggested it for a little girl he knows that could possibly benefit from it.
North Central PA computer networking / Freenet site: Andy Hughes reported the JVB Computer Literacy Program for Seniors (Ages 50 and up) will begin in January. Volunteers are being requested for the Project. This involves one-on-one tutoring for Windows 95, MS Works Word Processing, Spreadsheets and Database and the Internet. Scheduling will be determined between the senior and the tutor. Call the Brown Library for more information.
Help: (offering help to computer users who need it) Robert Morton requests help regarding Lycoming Link BBS
Local BBS I ISP / Computer Retailer news: NAC Staff added to ISP news request list. Local Web TV access number now available in our area. Check out http://www.webtv.net for more information. Cyberville BBS is off the air.
Scott Frye from PenNet was present at our meeting. He announced to us that Microserve will soon be providing the service for current PenNet clients. All customers will be given a new local dial up number, new user names, and passwords. Scott indictated that PenNet is willing to provide email aliasing at no cost, so customers can have their old pennet.net address forward to their new microserve.net address. Pennet is making the move from an ISP to a web hosting service and is working on some other exciting projects. The changes should be complete by the first week in January. Local ISDN service will remain with PenNet. All customers should see an increase in throughput. Microserve is expected to add support for 56k access sometime in 1997. Microserve also offers a Pensell pager service for free. Microserve's phone number is 1-800-380-INET. Scott thanked the club for our support, and we wish the best for PenNet, who brought residential Internet service to this area first.
Other Concerns: Kathy highlighted the club's achievements over the past year, and requested ideas for 1997. In the case of inclement weather on meeting nights, please check for wacc-announce e-mail, check our web site or listen to 102.7 KISS-FM for cancellations.
Kathy presented Mike Lacher with a certificate of recognition for his outstanding active involvement with the Williamsport Area Computer Club and volunteer work with this area's computing community during 1996. A letter from Jerry Baker, member of the Veterans of Vietnam War Organization (www.vvnw.org/vvnw), which thanked Mike for his web site help was read. Quoting parts of Jerry's letter: "On behalf of Veterans of the Vietnam War, Inc., we extend our sincerest thanks to him in helping us create our homepage on the web! ... With Mike being a student and veteran we applaud him for taking the time out of his busy schedule to help us with what we feel was and is an all important project! ... As Mike states on his E-mail footers and on his homepage: "All Around Nice Guy". This doesn't begin to describe Mike in our book! He deserves alot and will be rewarded by this organization! ... Mike, thank you for kindness, patience and understanding! Thank you for being there for us, and may the good Lord smile upon you for the things that you do for people and organizations like us!"
Mike will be returning to his hometown in Hanover, PA. after the end of this semester. He will remain in touch with the Club through email and the wacc-chat mailing list.
Programs: Our guest speaker for January will be Robert Van Allen, from BLaST Intermediate Unit 17. He will tell us more about the SCRONGE (computer recycling) Project. A representative of Susquehanna Communications will speak at a future meeting. The club gathered at Benjie's after the meeting for a little socializing. We had a good time and good food! The conversation was as hot as the nachos ... :) We are recruiting a Chairperson to organize our monthly programs. If anyone has ideas or suggestions for future programs, please let us know! Willis Beaver, Treasurer will take care of purchasing speaker gifts. Lou made a motion to permit spending up to $10.00/month for the speaker gifts and Andy seconded it. Motion carried.
Meeting Adjourned.
Next meeting date: Tuesday, January 14, 1997 - 7 pm, Lycoming College Academic Center, Williamsport.
Williamsport Area Computer Club contact info:- home page: http://www.sunlink.net/wacc Kathy KoIb - 326-7529 (voice) - kkolb@sunlink.net (email) Local BBS: Lycoming Link 321-6440 IRC channel Tuesday and Sunday evenings on irc.dal.net ( /join #WACC ) wacc-chat mailing list- send a message to wacc-chat-request@sunlink.net with the word subscribe in the subject.