tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20751362368271079492011-12-18T17:19:12.713+11:00This blog is all about our activities at Parramatta Computer Pals for Seniors. We started it for the Google Tools course, but hopefully its use will spread to other training courses and activities.Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.comBlogger361100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-31061919225805985072011-11-16T20:52:00.000+11:002011-11-16T20:52:57.311+11:00

Nadia, Florence and Josie attending for the first time Today, 15 members attended Day One of the ASCCA conference at the Rydges World Square (Pitt Street, Sydney). Great speakers, interesting workshops, followed by the ASCCA Annual General Meeting. The AGM is always accompanied by the Club Competition results, and once again, our club featured in the results. Judy receiving her 1st prize

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com2Sydney NSW, Australia-33.873651 151.20688960000007-33.885485 151.19397910000006 -33.861817 151.21980010000007tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-63043338382225307092011-10-26T18:49:00.000+11:002011-10-26T18:50:01.052+11:00

Bev checking Honor's financial status  The Club's 2010-11 Annual General Meeting was held last Friday, 21st October and 45 financial members turned up.  There were many more apologies than usual, including that of our treasurer Hazel Labka who is currently recovering from an operation, and other usual attendees who are engaged in heavy caring responsibilities or are on holidays. But

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-54331134754917490982011-09-21T14:49:00.000+10:002011-09-21T14:49:10.224+10:00

Residents listening to Margaret This morning John and I had an opportunity to talk to residents at our retirement village - Constitution Hill - about our computer club. About 30 people showed up, including some of our friendly neighbours, and about 7-8 residents who are already members of ParraPals.  Some other participants are, or have been members of computer clubs at Blacktown, The Hills

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-54598696910334268782011-09-20T12:07:00.001+10:002011-09-20T13:10:07.723+10:00

Where is John Lee? Last night, 11 ParraPals, not afraid of the dark or a late night out, shared a bus with a dozen or so students and teachers from Parramatta Marist High School, for a trip to the ABC's Ultimo studios.  We were on our way to participate in Q & A with Tony Jones. The topics for last night's show were politics and religion, and the guests were Raymond Gaita, author and philopher;

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-26935611404954131132011-08-21T16:09:00.000+10:002011-08-21T16:09:22.039+10:00

Despite the miserable weather, about 55 members came along to our August monthly meeting.  Our guest speaker was Tim Connell at Quantum RLV, which sells and distributes equipment and software to make life easier for people with vision impairment. Quantum RLV has been around for 25 years - it Dolphin Easy Text software used to be at Rydalmere and known as Quantum Technology but is now based

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-18004500885177258312011-08-20T18:10:00.000+10:002011-08-20T18:10:28.497+10:00

Husband and wife members Jim and Rosa recently joined our ComputerPals club to learn together how to use computers. Now, after undergoing a five week course Beginners 1 Windows 7, both Rosa and Jim are much more confident and competent in the basics of understanding and using computers. Although they presently share a home computer, I suspect it wont be long before they each have their own

John Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478617447117827084noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-541949823418102982011-08-16T22:20:00.000+10:002011-08-16T22:20:06.939+10:00

I have been a user of the Family Tree Maker Genealogical programe for some years, and when Trainer Deborah announced a short course featuring FTM I decided to enrol . I have attended other family history courses run by Deborah and was impressed by her knowledge and professional presentations. So, this morning I drove to my cousin and club members Ron Taylor's nearby home and picked him up. Ron

John Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478617447117827084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-26091096125320581032011-07-23T11:07:00.000+10:002011-07-23T11:07:13.521+10:00

About a month ago, we bravely held an Apple Mac information day at ParraPals.  We already had three MAC enthusiasts amongst our membership, and we knew there had to be more out there.  So we sent a community notice to the Parramatta Advertiser, inserted a snippet in ASCCA's newsletter, and asked our members to spread the word. About a dozen people turned up, and this resulted in a Special

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-77514840661765520912011-07-04T20:23:00.000+10:002011-07-04T20:23:01.107+10:00

Hyde Park Barracks Our Genealogy and Digital Photography Special Interest Groups decided to join forces for a field trip last Friday.  We set off by train from Parramatta to visit the historic Hyde Park Barracks.  Twenty four of us turned up for the guided tour at 1pm, after most of us had lunch, either take away, home made sandwiches or dining in style at Hyde Park. Our guide Margot was very

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-36572247042365098372011-05-19T20:06:00.000+10:002011-05-19T20:06:26.353+10:00

How could this be?  Tomorrow, we will be missing at least four of our management committee - and maybe a fifth - at our May members' meeting.  Deborah and Peter are on holidays interstate; John is in bed sick; Hazel (No 2) has to take Deb to hospital; and Judy has come down with a chest infection. Nevertheless, we'll survive.  Committee members Marg G, Michael and Marg T will be there, and we've

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-52615206580899409182011-03-17T20:04:00.000+11:002011-03-17T20:04:16.076+11:00

Tomorrow we hold our third monthly meeting for the year.  Since late last year, we have been attracting well over 50 members to each meeting, so much so that we have asked Council if we can book a larger room next financial year.  We expect to see a number of new faces tomorrow too, since we have just organised our courses for Term 2 (April to June) and many people will be paying for courses to

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-17623751454805251442011-02-01T15:51:00.000+11:002011-02-01T15:51:43.207+11:00

Well we had Christmas and New Year off, but straight afterwards, we began a publicity drive, getting pamphlets, flyers and timetables out to retirement villages, former members, libraries and shopping centres.  We had and are continuing to have a good response from that.  And the Parramatta Advertiser came to visit and brought a photographer with them, resulting in an article mid January. In

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-81298539290598170922010-12-13T20:29:00.000+11:002010-12-13T20:29:45.841+11:00

Financial members may now book for courses commencing the week of January 31. Check the course timetable here at  Term 1 courses.  We have a range of five week courses, with the second half starting in early March.  There are also a number of short courses being offered on Fridays during Term 1.   Members and enquirers are now starting to use PCs and laptops with the new Windows 7 operating

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-4315376978653620802010-11-18T19:40:00.001+11:002010-11-19T07:10:10.382+11:00

Deborah sent in this update on the doings of the Club's Genealogy Special Interest Group.  This is the fourth field trip undertaken by the SIG and I think the most popular so far.  John and I are really sorry we couldn't go.  I'll let Deborah tell it in her own words: On Friday, 12th November the Genealogy SIG enjoyed our own private tour of the Society of Australian Genealogists’ library in Kent

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-72393382329215322922010-09-10T10:23:00.000+10:002010-09-10T10:23:24.188+10:00

  ParraPals member John Lee wrote this little memoir after yesterday's conference:Back in the computer age of 286 and 486 computers, I started editing my home video tapes by computer, using Pinnacle connection equipment and its analogue computer program.At the time I subscribed to a local video magazine edited by Peter Blasina. Pinnacle upgraded their product regularly and I attended a couple of

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-54871589362611393322010-08-10T21:38:00.002+10:002010-08-26T09:59:55.438+10:00

I've just registered to attend the 2 conference days in September, and am looking forward to my first attendance at this Computer Clubs Association conference, with other members of Parramatta ComputerPals.

John Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478617447117827084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-17917294621118666922010-07-18T21:33:00.000+10:002010-07-18T21:33:22.290+10:00

This is what we discussed at our meeting on Friday, 16th July. GENEALOGY COURSE Agreed that in Term 4 Deborah (and other topic experts) will run this as a series of short courses and members can choose the topics relevant to them. Most popular topics are: • Research English/Welsh ancestry • Researching Australian convict ancestors • Researching other Australian ancestors • Researching

Deborahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16561283612226703548noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-36346052065336770032010-07-09T20:04:00.000+10:002010-07-09T20:04:01.606+10:00

As we mentioned in an earlier blog, the club was successful in obtaining a grant through the Commonwealth government's Volunteer Equipment Grants Program 2009.  With the grant we bought a new laptop, a data projector, a digital camera and a new sound system designed to assist members with hearing impairment during their lessons or at a members' meeting. We thought it would be a good idea to

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-19852640067542105032010-07-01T20:03:00.000+10:002010-07-01T20:03:25.370+10:00

Last night six club members and a spouse met in Parramatta's Eat Street - Church and Phillip Streets - for dinner prior to hot-footing it to Parramatta Town Hall to watch the Lantern Parade wend its way to Old Government House via Church and George Streets. Most of us are members of the club's Digital Photography Special Interest Group and of course took our cameras with us.  We took some really

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-25627118211134498992010-06-24T07:09:00.000+10:002010-06-24T07:09:53.816+10:00

Bloggersunite.org has suggested that bloggers around the world use tomorrow to blog about empowering people with disabilities, and I thought what a good idea. As you know,  Parramatta Computer Pals for Seniors prides itself on being fully "seniors friendly" and one way to do this is to make sure our members and visitors with a disability can use the club facilities. To this end, we made sure we

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-28384369467918894462010-06-14T18:37:00.000+10:002010-06-14T18:37:22.887+10:00

It's great to see that already, 40 members have renewed their membership for the 2010-11 financial year and we expect many more to do so on Friday at our members meeting. As you know, we (Margaret and John) have recently moved into a popular retirement village at Constitution Hill in Northmead, and we are still getting used to it.  It has certainly made a difference to me, with less work to do

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-35351222180106983332010-06-08T19:59:00.004+10:002010-06-08T20:08:12.786+10:00

Pete attended the first Skills for a Mature Aged Workforce training program run by ASCCA with assistance from Microsoft. There were 12 three hour sessions run by Diane Brentnall, Theresa Wilson and Sirkka Duncan, with guest speakers on job hunting and Centrelink.The program is designed for mature age people intended to return to the work force. As well as giving skills in creating a CV, getting

Deborahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16561283612226703548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-45957732165767482482010-06-08T19:34:00.005+10:002010-06-08T19:58:55.056+10:00

On 6th June Pete and Jon went to a free Cyber Security Forum organised by ASCCA as part of National Cyber Security Awareness Week. There were guest speakers from the Commonwealth Bank, the Australian Federal Police (AFP), and Microsoft, followed by questions from the audience.The AFP speaker handed out a useful booklet called Protecting Yourself Online - What Everyone Needs to Know. It's

Deborahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16561283612226703548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-59657457147412773252010-06-05T17:32:00.005+10:002010-06-05T17:48:44.647+10:00

Peter Grove and Deborah Martin were on holidays in the South West of WA recently. Dorothy from ASCCA gave us the address of Peel Seniornet Inc in Mandurah (south of Perth), which is a Seniors Computer group like Parramatta Computer Pals. Like us, they have a computer room and access to a meeting room - theirs is at Mandurah City Council Community Centre. It's a beautiful setting looking over a

Deborahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16561283612226703548noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-54739952526882399462010-06-02T22:02:00.003+10:002010-06-05T14:48:48.071+10:00

John and members at a members' monthly meeting A few years back, in Seniors Week I think, I saw a stall that was promoting the formation of a computerpals club in Parramatta, so I completed forms and eventually went to the formation meeting of Parramatta ComputerPals for Seniors and joined on the day. When Margaret learned that I was already into video and photo editing, she wanted me to be a

John Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478617447117827084noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-69938653704996375502010-03-17T20:01:00.000+11:002010-03-17T20:01:48.704+11:00

Have you looked at the ParraPals website lately?  Quite a number of pages have been updated in the past week - especially the Courses page.  The full timetable for Term 2, commencing in the week commencing 19th April is shown,  With some important exceptions - mostly Monday courses - courses start in Week 2, just after Anzac Day.  The first week has been set aside for some two hour refresher

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-55640382275426283462010-03-13T09:54:00.002+11:002010-03-13T10:11:11.540+11:00

After a long summer hibernation the Genealogy Special Interest Group is meeting again after our Members' Meeting on 19th March. We will break for lunch and then convene at 12:30 pm.Rookwood CemeteryOur first excursion for 2010 is a guided tour of Rookwood Cemetery. Depending on the numbers interested, we may either join a scheduled tour one Sunday morning, or arrange our own tour on a date that

Deborahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16561283612226703548noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-8797690571504327762010-03-06T19:52:00.001+11:002010-03-06T19:54:06.255+11:00

Seventeen members of the Digital Photography Special Interest Group and other club members enjoyed morning tea and lunch at Circular Quay after catching the all stops Betty Cuthbert ferry to town yesterday morning.  Most members had their cameras - the purpose of the exercise - and made good use of them along the way. Even for those of us without cameras - yours truly dropped hers a few weeks ago

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-41683708278334431102010-02-17T18:51:00.000+11:002010-02-17T18:51:21.063+11:00

It seems that the Digital Photo Story class - see the photo - has some surprises in store for us on Friday at the members' meeting.  What they are I do not know - your president and Photo Story trainer John doesn't share all his secrets with me! I do know they are putting a project together.  So either they are going to show us something, or maybe make us stars.  Who knows?  So you'd better come

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-37555888077296388632010-02-15T11:08:00.001+11:002010-02-15T12:17:45.635+11:00

We are now into Week 3 of our fourth year at Parramatta Computer Pals and the club rooms are buzzing.  Most of our current courses are full to capacity, and we are slowly filling up the five week courses commencing at the end of February. There are also a few vacancies in our two Monday short courses in Email Refresher and Skype. All our courses finish just before Easter. Just about all classes

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-32206698637372125392010-02-01T13:48:00.000+11:002010-02-01T13:48:47.593+11:00

At the club, we don't give you much time to recover from Christmas and New Year parties - maybe we don't need it at our age!  In January, we always celebrate our club birthday, and this was our third.  President John Moxon did the honours at our monthly meeting on 15th January, watched by yours truly as Secretary and special guest Joan Craymer, president of Epping Computer Pals for Seniors and

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-15461998231699765592010-01-08T13:39:00.000+11:002010-01-08T13:39:17.030+11:00

Is it really three years since we took that huge leap of faith to start a Computer Pals club in Parramatta? We'd been meeting and talking about it for months,and had no premises, no computers and no money. But we did have the support of Parramatta City Council's Community Capacity Building Team, as well as the Australian Seniors Computer Clubs Association. Additionally, we had the promise of

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-30607518647140684842010-01-05T20:35:00.000+11:002010-01-05T20:35:28.520+11:00

Christmas has come and gone, and we - meaning the management committee, trainers and other volunteers - are now gearing up for the first of our four terms for 2010. Three of us were in the office today, and Judy Joyce has organised a working bee for the next two weeks. We will be busy organising course notes, additional publicity, cleaning the training room and reception area, installing new

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-60279010645936095772009-11-02T10:28:00.000+11:002009-11-02T10:28:49.940+11:00

Whilst John is teaching Internet and Email this morning to his four eager students, I am at home preparing some notes. (We had a busy and sociable weekend and spent last week down the coast having a relaxing break). In preparing these notes, I am using three software applications. These are Microsoft Word 2007, the Internet (Google of course), and a little tool you have probably never heard of

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-19512025076585789692009-10-20T13:08:00.000+11:002009-10-20T13:08:20.068+11:00

As comments on yesterday's blog make evident, John took no part in the Google tools training yesterday. He has a bad cough and is not at all well today. Nevertheless, we had a really good session. The first task was to set up a Google account, which three students had already done. The students are all quite computer literate, most of them having enjoyed lessons for at least a year, so that

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075136236827107949.post-77840033337590912922009-10-18T10:07:00.004+11:002009-10-18T11:13:57.636+11:00

Tomorrow afternoon, Parramatta Computer Pals for Seniors starts its first course in Google Tools, becoming familiar with an amazing group of Google applications. Margaret Tucker and John Moxon will be running the 10 hour course, and six members are enrolled. The cost is $40.Members will set up a Google account if they don't already have one, and become familiar with Gmail, Google calendars, web

Margarethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04210737838231377942noreply@blogger.com6