Woe is us! Winter

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 rung around to find other members to help us out with setting up the equipment, welcoming new members, taking fees, helping Hazel No 1 with the catering.

Tomorrow we will be using two brand new urns - 5Litre urns for easy handling.  Thanks Margaret Green for researching the best deal for us.

By the time you leave tomorrow, members should know much more about our club website, and how to find information on it.

Haven't we grown? Likely to break our record of 205 financial members this year

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 which they have committed.
I expect tomorrow we may break our record for the number of financial members - set in 2008-9 - of 205 members.  We currently have 197 financial members.
Windows 7 is now extremely popular, and many of our new members have purchased laptops, and so have many of our long term members.

Gearing up for a new year at ParraPals

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 mid-January trainers and buddies volunteered for the working bee, which was also an opportunity for members and enquirers to book into courses.

We also realised that most of our trainers and buddies were unfamiliar with Windows 7, so Michael Myers volunteered to run a two hour session to bring us up to speed.  The consensus was that it isn't much different from Vista, so easy enough to follow.  Since we planned the meeting more than a handful of our trainers and buddies had acquired a new PC or laptop with Windows 7 anyway.  Jon Bayley also ran a two hour session on how to use the club digital camera.

Member turnout for our two functions in January was very pleasing - 30 at our Lunch at the Leagues on 17th; 55 at our Members' meeting and 4th birthday party on 21st January.

E-bay - Buying, and e-Bay selling - offered as separate short courses by Deborah Martin - have proved so popular that she has scheduled two more classes.  These are to be held on Monday afternoons 21st February (Buying) and 28th February (Selling), between 1.00-3.15pm.  Preference will be given to people on the waiting list.

Term 1 courses at Parramatta Computer Pals

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 system, and there is no longer a demand for Vista courses, so we have decided to offer our Beginners courses and Beyond the Basics courses in XP and Windows 7.  However, we still run Vista as a third operating system in our training room, for those who feel more comfortable using that to do our more advanced courses.

Visit to the Society of Australian Genealogists (SAG)

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, 12^th November the Genealogy SIG enjoyed our own private tour of the Society of Australian Genealogists’ library in Kent Street, Sydney.  Sixteen of us travelled by train and ferry to the city and met up at a café just down the street.

The Librarian, Lorraine Brothers, welcomed us  and began by explaining that the library’s collections of books and journals is organised by country, starting with A for Australia, through N for England  and finishing at Z, rare books.   There are some interesting card indexes worth exploring, including indexes to some of the books in the library as well as Victorian Cemeteries and newspaper cuttings for the Hunter Valley area. 

Deborah and Judy

The library has microfiche and microfilm readers  (where we can look up material such as the indexes to the UK Old Parish Registers, NSW Parish Registers and Irish Civil Registrations) and 15 computers with access to Ancestry, Find My Past, The Genealogist, National Archives and Origins as well as various databases on CDs.  SAG has a team of volunteers who help visitors with their research.

After the tour twelve of us had lunch together at the City Bowlers Club in the café upstairs before heading off in different directions.  We agreed that it had been a very interesting visit and Lorraine was very knowledgeable and able to answer everyone’s questions.

Suggestions on our next Genealogy SIG excursion are welcome