which brought in several non-member attendees.
And a New Jersey group sends regular press releases announcing its activities. Nicely following the standard press release format, information is presented for easy use by news media. Regular well presented publicity and general information is hugely valuable to user groups, recruiting new attendees and members and often facilitating creating partnerships with local businesses. Here’s the beginning of a recent announcement from the NJ group, giving a great summary of the events information, value, and details:
For Immediate ReleaseThe SeniorNet Computer Literacy Center, Ewing, New Jersey For further information: Call 609.882.5086 or Visit www.ewingsnet.com
“Why Home Computing Is a Mess And What To Do About It”
SeniorNet To Present Free Program May 13
Ewing, NJ: What individual computer user can claim never to have had a frustrating moment using his or her machine? Victor Laurie is willing to wager the answer is “none.” A SeniorNet curriculum creator and volunteer lecturer, Laurie will present “Why Home Computing Is a Mess and What to Do About It” on Tuesday, May 13, at 1:30 p.m. in the second floor meeting room at the Ewing Community Center, 320 Hollowbrook Road. The presentation will be preceded at 1 p.m. by a question and answer session during which members of the audience can address their individual computer questions and concerns to members of the SeniorNet faculty. This program, which is free and open to the public, is the latest in SeniorNet’s on-going “Computer Tips and Tricks” series presented on the second Tuesday of each month. No registration is required for the presentations which are free and open to the public.
Don’t Let SIGs, Projects, or Activities Be One-Person Operations
Here’s an exchange of email regarding a successful long-term user group project which is in danger of ending because the one person running it is getting burned out. It demonstrates that SIG leaders and other volunteers must recruit and train backup staff, else various critical/valuable projects and efforts are at risk of ending when they lose their ONE volunteer.SIG and project leaders should be flexible about accepting help and suggestions and members must recognize the effort required to run meetings and projects/events. Nothing happens by magic and if people who value activities don’t pitch in, the activities will end and everyone loses. User groups can’t consist entirely of members who simply accept benefits without participating. Everyone simply paying dues and expecting magic to happen doesn’t lead to vibrant, successful user groups!
I commented: Too bad, this meeting has been a valuable local resource. Here’s a chance for someone else to step in and help!
------- Original Message ------- Subject: Future SIG meetings
From: Chair, Computer Club/Senior SIGEveryone. I have been forced to cancel all Computer Club Meetings from today until 12 September 2008 because no one will help me while I am on vacation from 15 April until Memorial Day Weekend. Under normal circumstances, our next Computer Club Meeting would be on the 6th of September, but AARP will be winding down a big week which many of you will probably be involved in.
When I get back from vacation, I will restart Tech Support on Friday mornings from 10-11:30 in Rm 215. The first session will be 6 June so mark your calendar.
Computer Club Meetings will convene once again in September until at least the end of the year.
While we are closed down, please consider helping me once we start up again and please give me ideas for future meetings. I cannot do this by myself.
Belated Welcome For New Region 2 APCUG Member User Group
This past March I had the pleasure of speaking at what I believe is Region 2’s newest member group, Gaithersburg, MD’s Asbury Methodist Village Computer Club. This group discovered and joined APCUG, then invited me to visit, describing their group thusly:The club’s membership is now at 199 paid memberships and turnout for meetings is about half of that. Visitors are always welcome. We’ve grown since 1991 when a few of us were chatting about computers and I suggested we should get together on a regular basis and meet in our apartments for computer talk. We did this, adding to the group along the way and outgrowing our apartments, going then to a meeting room at Asbury. We eventually developed into a full-blown organization with President, V.P. (which I am) Secretary, Treasurer and other positions making up the Executive Committee. Residents’ interest in computers has developed as well and many members are real “techies.” When the Rosborough Building was built, Wayne and Dorothy Smithy, an Asbury couple, contributed money for the building and a room was designated as the Smithy Computer Center where there are ten Dell Computers and a printer for residents’ use.
Charlie Fullerton, an Asbury resident and member of the club, is very computer savvy and developed and maintains the Asbury web site - amvresidents.org. On the site is a listing for the Computer Club and from there it is possible to see a listing of recent speakers and their topics.
The computer club’s Web page
As more senior communities organize computer clubs, there’s an opportunity for
existing user groups to help and affiliate with them, to gain members and
provide community service. And robust groups like Asbury’s are great candidates
for their own APCUG memberships.
You need only the desire to get this done and to check statistics
occasionally.in The program carries on without much watering or feeding, earning
some free change for your cause. Depending on the traffic to your site, residual
income can be considerable. If you are a fledgling club, you can still expect
about $20 a month on average. You’ll also need a little help from your Webmaster
to get login information to the Web hosting server and if you do not know how to
edit and upload .html files to the correct location.
For those who need lots of background before jumping in, visit Amazon.com and
click on the Associates Program link to get an application and find out how the
program works.
If you do not already have an Amazon account, or to set up a new account, you’ll
need to sign up with an email address and password to associate with the
‘aStores’ you want to set up on your web site.
Check your email for Amazon confirmation of the account with a unique ID Amazon
uses to track sales.
There is no charge to apply and there is no minimum referral requirement or
quota you must reach before earning referral fees with the program. Earnings
kick in right away.
You can safely apply for the program without reading every single word in the
Operating Agreement. But if you don’t understand a change in the numbers you
need to report to your club, it’s must reading because the Operating Agreement
does change, thus affecting your referral income. The most recent changes in the
Operating Agreement posted July 1, 2008 from the previous one posted June 3,
2008 brought the referral fee rate on Unbox products down from 20% to 10%,
adding that purchase to the Kindle and Amazonmp3 category and adding a referral
fee rate of 15% for a new category of click-through purchases at Endless.com.
There are still four purchase categories: CE Product which are “Electronics,”
“Audio & Video” or “Camera & Photo” items for sale; Unbox Product which are
video download items; Kindle/Amazonmp3 Product, which are mp3 downloads and
Kindle and kind-related items; and General Product, which is everything else.
To create Amazon stores for your site, log into your account at Amazon.com,
click the aStores link, and follow directions to choose product categories and
settings, color and design of your aStores, add widgets, and get the code
snippet to link the stores to your site pages.
Three linking options are offered to embed your aStores onto your site. The
Simple option presents your store (with your logo and titling to identify that
it is your club’s aStore) is a stand-alone store. This option ended up the best
choice for our group to ensure the best accommodation to varying display sizes.
Amazon linking options from your site pages makes your aStores fresh and fun.
Use them!
Advertise to your members or visitors that they can help the cause by making
Amazon purchases through your club’s Web site rather than going directly to
Amazon.com. Everything Amazon sells is available through your Web site’s Amazon
stores: books, music, DVDs, toys, electronics, kitchen, apparel,
jewelry-virtually millions of products.
Raising Free Money for Your Cause at Amazon.com
It’s easy to set up Amazon.com’s Associates program for your club, user group,
or other cause. The program is free to individuals and entities and requires
only a little verification that you are who you say you are and have a cause
intending no harm to the world.
by CPCUG’s Nan Blissett
(blissett @ cox.net)