PACC OPERATIONS
PACC OPERATIONS
I feel that there is a lot more we could do to make our club better. But first we need to know what the members are interested in doing and how much they are willing to help. The club can improve; if the leadership discovers those important interests. Then the club would find new meaning, and be enthusiastic again about computers.
The By-Laws committee spent many hours incorporating the ideas of the club members on how to make the club great. The By-Laws explain how each leader has certain powers and responsibilities. These are shared with other board members, so that no member abuses his authority; and also so that there is someone else to help each leader share in the work. It is very easy to see what the powers and responsibilities are for each board member using the html version of the By-Laws right on your screen. Nor is it difficult to download the By-Laws, and to print them up into a nice booklet. It took me less than half an hour to do two different ways of printing them. In this way you can always carry them around with you, and refer to them when you need them.
Here are some ways the duties are shared. For example, the President and the VP of Programs work together with the vendors to get good product presentations, demos, and evaluation copies of software, and hardware for the club meetings. Both are contact persons for the club for this aspect of club Programs, and therefore need to share the authority. And both need to communicate with the members, and the vendors about what they are doing. This is why it is important for the members to see the mail, learn about the correspondences, and be able to read the information vendors are willing to share with us.
Microsoft has been one of the best examples of a vendor who also feels that they are a sharing partner. Each quarter or so, they would send packages to the club. They called the project Mindshare, and the box they would send to the club often include new products, Tech Net, and Microsoft Knowledge Base CDs, and other useful ideas for improving the club. Most of these ideas important to the user groups' success were also given by other vendors and shared with other computer club work groups working with the APCUG forums, and then this information was published on the APCUG web site for the clubs to access. The APCUG web site can be accessed by these two contact persons, and they can also access the newsletters from other computer user groups around the world. Both the President, and the VP of Programs shared in these tasks, and both are the contact persons for these positions with the vendors, and other user groups.
The By-Laws explain how there are many ways the authority of the leaders of the club is shared, and many ways how the leaders are able to share the work. Most of this sharing involves two or more leaders. The President and the Treasurer/Assistant Secretary work very closely with the membership, and the financial reports of the club. Each Member at Large should be able to pick up the slack for any department leader. Just as the Exec VP does double duty as the Secretary of the club and assistant to the President, there are many connections in the ways the board members are to cooperate to make the club run smoothly.
The VP of Communications and the Editor of the newsletter should work closely with its publication. There are many steps to this process from ideas to reporting, to editing, printing, and mailing the final product, and there are many ways the members can help them do the work. The VP of Communications also works very closely with the VP of Education in fulfilling the member's need for information, transformation, and integrating every aspect of the membership into a better community. A lot of the activity can be distributed over the Helpline, open club forums, E-mail correspondences, club member web site lists, an open club web site server, supporting the club library, and by having members be encouraged to help one another.
Another way we can share our interests is by distributing our Favorites or Bookmark lists with one another, and perhaps use this information to see what our members would like to do with their computers, and then develop programs to help them accomplish these special interests by having presentations on these topics, and consider forming SIGs to help them work together doing these activities.
There is indeed a knowledge explosion that can be assessed on the Internet; yet it is the content that needs to be minded for it to have value. There never needs to be a good reason why we should not seek the truth, and improve ourselves. Information is great for the mind, but we also need to develop the rest of us to totally become transformed.
I propose using the best ideas of modern education to make the club more interesting, and the meetings more enjoyable by meeting on time, following the By-Laws, finding our interests, and sharing the work to make things easier for everyone. All I need is a little help from you. Can you help me make the club better?
Send me a Reply. Tell me your interests, and tell me that you will support my efforts to improve the club. If you do not do anything to help me, then the club will continue to lose its services, SIGs, and members until it will be too late!
Sincerely,
Phil Cutrara
Posted by philcutrara1
at 11:32 AM EDT