Have another look at our website - plenty of changes

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 courses.  These are proving very popular but there are still some vacancies in the Email Refresher course.

The other web page which has been updated is the Links page. The genealogy links have been checked and updated, and there are some useful links under the Seniors section.  Let me know if you have a suggestion about links on the four topics displayed.

Are you a member of Facebook?  If so, I do hope you will join the group Parramatta Computer Pals for Seniors

Ghost Hunting at Rookwood Cemetery

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 Cemetery
Our 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 suits. Tours are led by volunteer guides from the Friends of Rookwood, and we can choose any of several themed walks - the 700 acres of cemetery is too big to cover everything! Most of the Cemetery Trusts have websites where you can search for the burial details of your ancestors, so come prepared to go ghost hunting.

Lost Cousins
Deborah has recently discovered an interesting free website called Lost Cousins (www.lostcousins.com) and will talk about it at the meeting. If you have ancestors or relations who are listed in the 1841 or 1881 England and Wales census, or similar censuses, you can list them on this site. If any "lost cousin" has matching records you can get in touch with each other through the site.

Problem solving
Sometimes when you get stuck researching an ancestor, someone else has had a similar problem and can help you with a solution. Bring any information you have about a problem ancestor to a meeting and we'll try to help you.

A good day out on the Parramatta River

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 - enjoyed the day, chatting to our mates and enjoying the scenery.
Maureen Neilsen grew up near the Parramatta river at Concord, and regaled us with stories of her childhood on the river, and the changes she's noticed over the years.
Rain had been forecast, but luckily for us it didn't arrive till one o'clock, after we'd finished our lunch so we caught the express ferry back to Rydalmere and Parramatta.  We all agreed it had been a very pleasant day, and were keen to organise another outing, maybe to Windsor and Richmond, to Olympic Park, lunch at the Sydney Rowing Club at Abbotsford.  There are so many possibilities...
Thank you Michael - the new co-ordinator of our Digital Photography Special Interest Group - for organising this outing.
Don't forget, there are two 10 hour courses for digital photographers, each running most terms.  These are Manage Your Digital Photos, and Digital Photo Stories. Photographers may also be interested in trying the PowerPoint course as well, or encouraging us to run a scrapbooking class.

Surprises in store at Friday's members' meeting

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 along and find out. The meeting starts at 9.30am and finishes at 11.30, and a good morning tea can be expected since our caterer Hazel is blooming with health once again.

We are collecting Gmail accounts, since we want to set up a Club Calendar with all our events and meetings listed.  So if you have one, let us know at margaret.tucker2153 at gmail.com .

Busy days at the club - plans for Win7

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 now have buddies who assist the trainer by helping those students who feel less confident than other class members or who need help to catch up.  I for one couldn't do without my buddy in Google Tools, even though my students are all fairly experienced computer enthusiasts.  Since late last year, we have included our growing crew of buddies in our trainers' meetings, organised by Judy Joyce (pictured with trainer Peter Grove), our training coordinator.  This has proved to be very worthwhile, with buddies contributing new ideas, and feeding back comments from our students.

This term we are introducing two new courses - an Email Refresher two hour course to be held on two occasions in weeks 6 and 7, and a Web Design course which has commenced with six intrepid starters one hour per week for nine weeks, extending for another two hours per week in weeks 6-9.  This is very much a pilot project since there are so many ways to learn web design, and each student will have a different goal.  It is very likely that this course will become a formalised Special Interest Group, but we'll see.

In late January, Judy and Deborah organised a gathering of 17 trainers and buddies to introduce us to Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 7.  We recently acquired a new laptop with Win7, but only 3-4 of us had experience with Win7. It is really important we become familiar with it as quickly as possible, since we are now receiving enquiries from members who have recently purchased PCs and laptops with the new system.

 Rather than try and "triple boot" the training room PCs, we decided that the differences between Vista and Win7 were not so great that we couldn't include Win7 students in the same class as Vista students.  The trainer and buddy would explain the differences and make the Win7 student feel confident to use their home computer.

After Deborah demonstrated some of the features of Win7, we discussed how all trainers and buddies could best become familiar with Win7.  We decided that each trainer - with priority given to those who currently taught Beginners 1 & 2 in Vista - should borrow the new Win7 laptop and practice using the operating system.  The Laptop would also have a Professor Teaches Win7 tutorial loaded.  The laptop would be available for 2-3 days or over a weekend, but between use would be available in the club rooms for demonstrations and practice.