APCUG Reports
January-March 2008

As we begin the 2008 year, I am happy to report that 8 groups have already renewed their membership in APCUG for 2008. Those groups are the Idaho PC User Group, Las Vegas PC Users Group, the MOAA User Group from Hawaii, Portland PC Users Group, the Sun City Anthem Computer Club (NV), Tacoma Area PC Users Group, the University Computer Association (NV) and the Woodburn Personal Computer Users Group of Woodburn, Oregon. We have several groups in the region who have yet to renew their dues for this year but starting out with 50% of our 2007 member groups in Region 12 having already renewed is great!

I would like to recognize those groups that attended the APCUG 2008 Annual Convention that just ended. First the “out of the immediate LV area” groups: The Idaho PC User Group with 4 attendees (and I sadly was not one of them), The MOAA User Group brought 3 attendees all the way from Hawaii, and The Tacoma Area PC Users Group with 2 attendees. 3 groups within the local Las Vegas area were well represented with 6 attendees from the Las Vegas PC Users Group, 7 attendees from the Sun City Anthem Computer Club, and 1 attendee each from the Sun City Summerlin Computer Club and the University Computer Association. I have been told that the presentations were very good along with the vendor driven events and that the convention was very worthwhile attending.

On a sad note, I have to report that the Raincoast 2008 regional conference will not be held in 2008 and the future of the Raincoast Regional Conference is very much in doubt. Having attended this event twice in the past, I was very hopeful that those organizing the 2008 conference would be able to garner the support needed to make this year’s event a reality, but that was not to be. I would be very interested in hearing from the regional 12 groups as to interest in coming together and putting together a 2009 Raincoast Conference.

User Group Highlights

Second stop is the Portland PC User Group of Portland Oregon. A very active group as evident in their website, they meet monthly, have several active Special Interest Groups (SIG), and publish a monthly newsletter which is available only to members. They share the mantra of many users groups “Users Helping Users” and state their mission as to educate its members and the public in computing through instructional programs, publications, lectures, demonstrations, workshops, and discussion groups. They offer a forum where members can exchange experiences, and can learn new technologies and their applications to everyday life. And first time visitors are always welcome to attend any meeting. Their very informative and active website can be viewed at http://www.ppcug.org.

Third stop is the Idaho PC Users Group of Boise, Idaho and they are Idaho’s oldest continuous PC User Group having been started way back in 1986. Significant about the Idaho PC User Group are their social activities such as the Winter and Summer social events which are held separately from general meetings. The Summer picnic is home to the famed AOL CD Toss! Meeting at the Boise Public Library, the group also provides instructors for the library’s computer classes given 4 times a month, which they have been doing for several years. Another of their community reach out activities is participation in the Idaho Business League’s Annual Business & Technology Expo held in January of each year. Their Newsletter is Bits and Pieces, a 16 to 20 page newsletter created in PageMaker every month featuring articles written by the membership, supplemented by APCUG articles from other user groups, along with the usual group meeting announcement, meeting report and other group business. It is distributed both electronically in PDF form as well as hard copy print for those who need it mailed to them. Their website is at http://idahopcug.apcug.org, where they post current meeting and contact information along with other content.

We have featured the Tacoma Area PC User Group in prior quarter reports but I also wanted to make a visit to them again this month because of their monthly 16 page newsletter, The Data Line. You can find a copy of their newsletter on their website at http://www.tapcug.org/newsletter.htm The thing I wanted to emphasize about their newsletter is that they publish it using Microsoft Publisher 2007 and then distribute it in PDF. This a great looking quality newsletter and I wanted to recognize Maggie Smith, their editor, for her work in doing the newsletter.