April Monthly Meeting
by C.M. Elliott
he monthly meeting began as usual with the business reports. Joni Gilkin gave her usual upbeat report that there had been three hundred and seventeen sign-ins at the clubhouse of which eighty one were designated social, thirty seven file copy, and seventy one SIGs (Special Interest Groups). Seventy two did not say why they were there. There was a comment made that those using the clubhouse should be members in good standing (or potential members). The buddy system is working very well. The sink is in - members are asked to please put dry cups away. John Phillips is responsible for the 486 machine with OS12 installed on it. There was a problem with the file copy computers which should be fixed by now. Members were asked to please not bring donations to the clubhouse without first contacting an executive member, as space is limited. There are now two club brochures available, one about the club and a second for those wishing to use the BBS.
The BBS is still waiting for BCTel to install the two extra lines requested. The link to the Internet email is waiting for a domain name to be assigned. It will probably be bbc. User addresses will be: firstname.lastname@bbc.victoria bc.ca.
Gregg Goede reported that the periodical library is cruising along quite nicely but that someone has borrowed, and not signed out, some very good books.
Les Benson reported on the need of newsletter articles and reviews. He is also in need of volunteers to write a report of the monthly meeting. He has been doing it for a year and is finding it difficult to find the time and to write interestingly every month. The time commitment is the monthly Wednesday meeting and about one to three hours to write before the following Monday.
Larry Kohlruss reported that there are fifteen hundred and twenty eight regular and nine corporate paid-up members. Larry was thanked for the work that he has done as membership secretary, as he is leaving for the greener pastures of Alberta.
The Financial Review is coming up soon. Any offers to do it? Not an audit.
After the break John Meloche introduced the speaker Lianne Saunders who is Western Accounts Manager for Symantec. She brought a multitude of prizes that were raffled off throughout her demonstration. There were hats and pins and mugs and flashlights as well as software. (As an aside, I will not be buying raffle tickets much longer unless the prim are winners choice. To win something that I have no capability to use is no bargain.) Lianne demonstrated the newest versions of a few of the Norton family of programmes. Symantec is the fifth largest software company in the world and is the leading utility company. It has merged and acquired several companies including Central Point Software (PC Tools), and now has a hundred and fifty different products and is still growing. Most of the demo was of Norton Desktop and Ad, a business contact manager. Act! is a contact database, activity scheduler, word processor and report generator all with network support.
Lianne finished by outlining details of the Symantec User Group Programme whereby a user group member can get a single copy of Symantec programmes for very advantageous prices for personal use only. Details and forms are available at the clubhouse. Lianne stressed that this offer is restricted to members of qualified user groups such as BB&C.
