FACUG Fall Conference
They attended all types of roundtable programs, including Newsletters & Editing,
501c3 Information, Building Membership, Volunteerism, UG Insurance, and a host
of other topics (Photos by Barb Pope).
In all there were sixteen presentations and roundtables in the program, plus
breakfast and luncheon presentations.
LSCS had two of its members make presentations: Barry Rimmer and Tom Thiel.
Oscar David, LSCS Membership Director, kindly provided his assessment of the
four programs he attended. Oscar’s summations follow:
How A Website Helps Build Membership
by LSCS Web Leader, Barry Rimmer
Barry did his usual very excellent presentation to maybe 15 or so attendees. The
slides that he used are included among the list of online Presentations with the
date of 07-10- 06 to help you find them; they tell the viewer how to build a web
site with the goal of providing member services and increasing overall User
Group membership in the process. His primary thesis was that since this was his
first online management database, he expected numerous technical programming
problems. He has had none of those; but has had many user access problems. In
spite of Barry’s theme, most questions were of a technical “How to Build a Web
Site” nature.
Ins & Outs of Blogging
by Carol Bean
There were about eight attendees at this more technical session. Since I am not
a blogger, this information was entirely new to me, and it was not what I
expected. Carol covered what a blog is, how it works, how to set one up and how
to use blogging tools. She used Windows XP, Linux and Apple OS, and that made
the presentation harder to follow. She mentioned about four or five blog
readers, but she only showed the Google Reader. She discussed Sign up and Set up
procedures, and blog types--Blogs (Web Log), Vlogs Video Blogs, Audio Blogs and
Photo Blogs. She also demonstrated how to set up to receive automatic feeds from
your favorite blog sites. We lost the Internet then, and the session was over.
Next time I will have a thumb drive so I can get a copy of the notes to study at
home.
What APCUG Can Do For You
by Stu Silverman
Stu is a member of the FACUG Board of Directors, and is also the SE US APCUG
(Association of Personal Computer User Groups) representative. This session had
maybe 10-12 Attendees, and was a User Group Management program. As a “newbie” to
the FACUG Conference, this presentation was very informative. We were introduced
to Jay Ferron, the new APCUG President, whose goal is to change the focus of
APCUG to run it more as a business. He encouraged us to participate in the
January 2008, Annual Conference in Las Vegas. We then started discussing ideas
other user groups use. All user groups were encouraged to use the new server at
www.APCUG.NET to share ideas with one another. The Association will be working
with more vendors to get better deals on their products. Members were asked to
participate in the many member awards programs that the APCUG offers. Detailed
information concerning the APCUG can be obtained from their latest quarterly
report.
How to Double Your Membership
by LSCS President Tom Thiel
About eight persons, representing about four User Groups, attended Tom’s
slide-based presentation (also included in the Presentations section of our web
site) to show how he has been able to obtain the support of the local newspapers
to inform area residents of LSCS and its programs. By doing this, LSCS was able
to increase membership from 103 on Jan. 1, 2007, to 212 on Oct. 6. One audience
User Group said that they are unable to get the support of their local press; at
the same time another User Group in the area has no problem at all.
In addition to Rimmer and Thiel, other LSCS members attending were, Lynne
Rimmer, Barbara Pope, Oscar David, Eugene Vollmer, and Alexander “Sandy”
Mackenzie.