President's Notes (09/05)
President's Message
SPCUG-FACUG-APCUG
by Phil Sorrentino
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
This looks like a good passphrase to use for wireless networking security. But it
is just the acronyms for the Sarasota PC Users Group – The Florida
Association of Computer User Groups – and the Association of Personal
Computer User Groups. We, the Sarasota PC Users Group, are members of both
the FACUG and the APCUG.
FACUG <www.facug.org> is the southeast regional
association of computer user groups. It was founded in 1993 to assist user
groups in the performance of their managerial and educational activities, to
promote communications among local user groups, and to facilitate relations
between user groups and the computer industry. (FACUG is the successor
organization to the Florida Suncoast Conference of PC User Groups, which was
started right here in Sarasota, in 1989.) FACUG encourages groups to
participate in educational and charitable services by offering seminars on
how to work within their communities. FACUG publishes a semi-annual
newsletter with information about both past and upcoming conferences. FACUG
also maintains an up-to-date list and schedule of vendors and contacts on
its Web site to help User Groups coordinate with neighboring groups (so that
vendors can make several presentations in an area within the same week).
APCUG <www.apcug.net> is an international
organization of PC User Groups (predominantly the US). The purpose and
reason for APCUG is promotion and assistance to User Groups worldwide. APCUG
was the outcome of discussions about the need to improve communications
between computer user groups countrywide, and their need to share
information such as newsletters, strategies, and ideas. The leaders of 15
User Groups met and proposed the formation of an association for the purpose
of fostering communication among and between user groups. That proposal was
presented to 130 representatives from 50 user groups at the Second Annual
User Group Summit Meeting in 1987, and APCUG was born. Florida is designated
as APCUG’s region 5.
So, we are members of both of these organizations for the
reason of their existence, namely information sharing relating to the
operation of a User Group. FACUG in the past has held a Spring and a Fall
User Group Conference. This year the Spring Conference was co-sponsored by
FACUG and APCUG, in an attempt to increase the scope and effectiveness of
the conference. The conference was held in Zephyrhills, FL, the weekend of
March 14th, and we had four SPCUG members in attendance. Many of the
scheduled events were discussions on topics of great interest to the
operation of SPCUG. Some of them were: Print Versus On-line Newsletters; How
to Increase Membership, Interest and Speakers; Remote Presentations; Social
Media, Creating better Communications within your Group; Windows 7; and
Using Twitter to Communicate. Vendor support for User Group activities has
become more of a problem over the years, but even in this slower economy,
some of the Vendors supporting the conference were: Microsoft; Smart
Computing Magazine; Magix; and AI Squared.
The benefit of FACUG and APCUG membership is information
and experience sharing. By sharing experiences, we are able to determine if
our experiences are unusual or typical among other user groups. Some of
these areas of concern are: Difficulty in obtaining Quality Presentations;
New members; Membership retention; Increased cost of meeting facilities
rental; Increased cost of providing quality educational programs (SIGS);
Increased cost of printed newsletters; New Means of Communications with the
membership; and New Technical areas of interest. Within most of these areas,
SPCUG appears to be doing quite well, although our overall membership has
been declining a bit. We are still able to have our monthly meeting at a
location where we can have a large meeting and multiple concurrent forums,
and we are providing an extraordinary educational schedule this semester
with the classes at the Boys & Girls Clubs and the Senior Friendship Center.
The Monitor is still a very high quality newsletter and it is still
available in print. Our web site is a primary means of communications with
our membership that can be expanded as needs arise and new techniques become
available.
The SPCUG officers that attended the conference returned with an
increased knowledge of the computer industry and a better idea of how to
improve the operation of our own organization. The ideas brought back by
these officers will be used to improve SPCUG’s administration, operation,
and technical education programs. After attendance at the Spring Conference
and discussions with other User Group officers, with all of the things we
are experiencing, it is my opinion that the Sarasota PC User Group state of
affairs is still quite healthy. There is always room for improvement and the
Board of Directors and I are dedicated to making SPCUG membership
worthwhile. :
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Copyright 2009. This article is from the May 2009 issue of the
Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota
Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL
34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit
computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and
our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication
the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For
further information about our group, email:
admin@spcug.org/ Web:
http://www.spcug.org/
The Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. has 1,100+ members
and was established in 1982. We are members of the Assoc. of PC User
Groups (APCUG), the Florida Assoc. of PC Users Groups, Inc., and we are
members of the America Online Ambassador Program.
See http://www.spcug.org for all reviews from the Sarasota PC
Monitor, go to the Newsletter Section.