A new recruit to my Syndicate has been making heavy weather of his first steps, and is clearly one of those people who don't like reading instruction manuals - but aren't we all a bit like that? FreeBMD now has so many Help buttons, Hints for Beginners, F.A.Q.s etc. (and that's not including my own briefing notes).... that there's a temptation to say, "oh, sod it!" and just dive in. He did, with predictable results. Now he's talking of resigning, his computer is up the spout etc. However, he has produced one interesting idea. Has there ever been, or is there any plan to devise, a simple 'demo' as to transcribing records - say, on WinBMD? Lots of computer programs offer a simple, animated, step-by-step walkthrough showing novices how to get started, how to proceed, things to watch out for etc. It seems to me that this would save volunteers a lot of pain in the early stages, especially for those many who can type with two fingers, but are comparatively computer-scared. It might also save Co-ordinators hours of patiently translating terms like Batch Header, Pick List etc. And it might help make our work more consistent across many scores of co-ordinators, and many thousands of volunteers. I wonder whether our program designer(s) would find this too much of a chore? Richard Oliver Madrid, Spain [email protected]