Roswell SeniorNet Executive Committee Meeting Minutes

September 5, 2006

(Approved)

 

The meeting was called to order at 10:00 am by Don Hogan, President 

 

Action 1: Approval of the minutes

The minutes from the June 6, 2006 Executive Committee meeting were accepted without revision

 

Attendees:

The following people were in attendance:

Don Hogan, Bert Emma, Emory Reese, Bob Nelson, Jessica Yanulavich (Roswell ARC),

John Szedon, John Rittenburg, Gene Staton and Anne Tilly

 

Treasurers Report: Larry Campbell

The balance in the SeniorNet account is $16,915 as of 9/3/06. The balance as of May 10 was $13,299.43. Money has not as yet been remitted to Roswell awaiting the start of classes for the Fall session.

 

 Larry Campbell is investigating how much of our resources should be put into CD’s and where in order to earn a 5% or better interest.

 

 Computer Fundamentals is within two students of starting. While capacity is typically 14, Julia would prefer a maximum of 12 students to have better information dissemination during classes.

 

Spring 2007 course selections will be defined shortly because the course descriptions need to be inserted in the Roswell Parks and Recreation Department brochure by October.

 

We have yet to find a course instructor for Family Tree Maker.

 

Tech/Webmaster:  Ed Glynn

Ed will be undergoing chemotherapy for a recently diagnoses illness but he feels well enough to work on updating our Web Page. He remains interested in working on our web page and will do as much as he can while working from home. His wife Kathy is coping with many family visitors and has expressed appreciation for the many good wishes received from the SeniorNet community.

 

Work on Lab computers:

 The PS’2’s have been corrected.  MS Word will be installed on all the Dells and a new disk has been ordered. The program “Go Back” needs to be re-installed on a number of machines.

 

 

 

Page 2. Roswell SeniorNet Executive Committee Meeting (continued)

 

 

Course Manuals: George Fuller

George was not attending this meeting. He was on vacation.  The manuals were proofed last week and are being printed. Word manuals are also included in the printing after being proofed.

 

Staffing for the Fall: John Rittenburg

We are fully staffed for all Fall classes with most all classes having three coaches. The full to capacity classes will have four coaches.

 

Volunteer Coordinator: Tony Cobourn/ Beth Korn

The new volunteer coordinator will be Beth Korn.  In order to continue to receive “Equipment” Grants from IBM, we desperately need another IBM employee or IBM retiree on the roster. A third volunteer is needed for about 5 hrs a month.

 

Disks and badges: Bob Nelson

Bob reports that he has enough disks to cover the needs of all classes.

Bob found a certificate template and has made the badges for Don Hogan’s class.

 

Room readiness: Barbara McGowan

Barbara reports that the room has been cleaned and is ready for classes.  We do need a volunteer to replace Barbara. Don has been working with Barbara but we do need to have a new volunteer for this open position.

 

Publicity report:  Fred Wooten

Updated flyers have been placed in Fulton County, Roswell and Sandy Springs libraries.  Additionally there has been an announcement placed in the Calendar of the Northside edition of the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  The AJC will keep it in their newspaper until classes begin.

 

Efforts will be expended to place our flyer in the Perimeter Adult Learning Center for seniors, or in the Marcus Center Paper.

 

 

Course information:

The Windows XP course will be taught by Don Hogan and the Internet E-Mail connection has been updated and is going well.

 

A Quicken 2006 disk was requested from SeniorNet Headquarters and one is on the way. When received it needs to be installed and updated on all Lab computers.

 

 

 

Page 3. Roswell SeniorNet Executive Committee Mtg. (continued)

 

Other Business:

The Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 Course was without a Manager.  Emory Reese would be interested in being the Manager if he could make certain changes. Emory presented the changes which consist of newly purchased Photoshop Elements 4 Manual specifically focused on a step by step use of all it’s capabilities.

 

We would discard the current SeniorNet Manual and use Simplified Photoshop Elements 4.   The cost of the manual is between $12 and $19, but can be purchased in quantity for about $15. Coaches will be loaned a manual which will be returned to the center after the course.

A speedy, quality color photo printer accommodating a 13” wide sheet needs to be purchased. A high quality Epson Photo printer can print an 8x10 picture in two minutes.

Adobe and Photo Imaging will use the high end printer.  

The 13” x 19” printer can be used to print posters, banners, etc. 

The Executive Committee authorized the purchase of the Epson eight color cartridge printer costing approximately $650 and agreed to the restructuring of the PSE 4 class which would allow students learning and implementing the cropping and color correction capabilities of the Photoshop suite of tools.   The first of eight two hour sessions will occur in the Winter Session and will be on Monday morning in January.

 

Material costs would be $4-$5 a class so that students can display their results.

 

Don Hogan stated that the price should be $55/class to cover the cost of the purchased manual for the students. Don proposed to remit the normal fee to SeniorNet since they supply the computer programs for our computers

 

 Nominating Committee: Robert Nelson: 

All officers have agreed to serve a 2nd term.  The motion was passed.

Officers should be elected for 2 years.  The executive committee will consider bi-law changes to make the officer terms two years.

 

Microsoft Unlimited Potential Sr. Net Grant Application:

Don Hogan is working on it now.  It must be submitted by September 29th.  He will be asking for Word instead of Front Page.  He also must submit the roster of the classes.

Newer students are using Office Suite instead of Works and the manual needs to reflect that. Student Office Program costs $120 to purchase.  Office 2003 is in the cabinet. 

 

Don Hogan will get licenses for all the machines if the grant is approved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Page 4.  Roswell SeniorNet Executive Committee Mtg. (continued)

 

New Microsoft Operating System:

Microsoft will be releasing a brand new operating system presently called, “VISTA

 

Vista has a new Office Suite with different concepts and different terminology.  It is substantially different.  SeniorNet should think about how we would ultimately implement that new operating system. We could possibly acquire a Beta version so we could familiarize ourselves with the differences since new computers will be configured with Vista and there will be a demand for it instead of Windows XP.

 

Course Issues:

Lab Report – Attendance generally a little lower for the Summer session than other seasons. There was an average of 2.6 students per session as compared with 3.5 for other sessions.  Twenty three students were focusing on Fundamentals, Graphics, Word and Intro to Windows.

 

We will no longer have Saturday Lab sessions. Labs will be on Fridays from 1:00 – 4:00 pm

 

Instructor and Coach Refresher Course:

It was proposed that a committee be established to attend a class in each quarter to monitor the teaching and coaching effectiveness and how well the curriculum content is conveyed to the class.  There were a few teachers last session that should be coached before teaching additional classes. 

 

No further business was brought up.  Don thanked each of the instructors and Executive Committee members for their efforts. A motion to adjourn the meeting was made and seconded. The meeting was adjourned at 11:35 A.M.

 

Minutes taken by Iris Goldmacher for Secretary Howard Goldmacher who could not attend this meeting.

 

Respectfully submitted by:

Howard and Iris Goldmacher, Roswell SeniorNet Secretary and Spouse