Part of the meeting this Saturday will be used to continue the discussion started in October and November about the future meetings and/or topics for MCGS SIG in 2003. To help with that discussion, below is a copy of a message I sent to John Deadman in November. This should help to bring everybody up to date with what I've learned and some options to help our SIG move forward. Gene Pennington http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~genepenn/ Researching Pennington - Wann - Stickney - Tankersley - Lancaster - Justis Member of these genealogy associations/groups: Pennington Research Association - http://www.penningtonresearch.org Marin County Genealogical Society - http://www.maringensoc.org/ BARUG (Bay Area Roots User Group) - http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~barug/ National Genealogical Association - http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/ California Genealogical Society - http://www.calgensoc.org ============================================= Copy of part of my message to John Deadman dated 11/12/02: I have spoken to a couple of people at the Golden Gate Computer Society (GGCS) and learned that since I am a member of the GGCS I can request to use their classroom. The process is for me to appear before the Board of the GGCS and make a presentation asking for their approval. Before I make such a presentation, there are some questions our CIG should answer. I'll detail those later. First, let me review how we could make good use of the GGCS classroom. I think we could put together a very good program for the entire 2003 year that combines sessions at the Villa Marin AND at the GGCS classroom. Not all our programs need "hands on" computers and if we produced two (2) sessions a year that do require "hands on" computers, that is workable. We have a wide range of topics to choose from for these sessions. In my message to you dated 10/16/02, I outlined 11 such programs. We can select from any of those, or use other topics suggested by other members of our CIG. If the two (2) sessions a year model were used, and each session was 4 classes, that would let us cover 8 topics of the 11 listed in my message dated 10/16/02. If our CIG meets 11 times a year, 8 of these meetings can be "hands-on" using the GGCS classroom and the other 3 can be on different topics (such as the digital camera presentation I'm doing at our next meeting). We can reduce the number of "hands-on" sessions if we have other topics we want to cover during 2003 that do not need the classroom. Second, here is a summary of what I learned about the classroom for the GGCS. 1. The classroom can accommodate up to 20 people sitting at 4 tables. Each table has one (1) computer so the 4 people sitting at each table will have to share the computer. There is a location for the instructor to use for his/her laptop, notes, etc. 2. The classroom is equipped with a LCD projector and a screen so the instructor/presenter can connect his/her notebook to it and display his presentation onto a screen. 3. The main classroom computer is connected to a single broadband (DSL) connection to the Internet and that connection can be shared by the 4 other classroom computers. This means that people can go to the Internet during a presentation/program to follow along with the instructor, etc. 4. The classroom coordinator does not see a problem with our CIG loading software onto the classroom computer for our classes. He will work with our person to ensure this is done properly, etc. We may have a problem finding enough legal copies of a specific software to load copies onto all of the computers in the classroom (a total of 5 copies will be needed). I can work on this issue later as I believe we can contact the software companies and get approval to use just one copy since it is for a classroom presentation and for a genealogical society. 5. The GGCS does NOT charge for use of the classroom by its' members but does charge $5.00 per class for non-members. This could be a little on the expensive side for our CIG. For example, if we had one session with 4 classes (i.e. one (1) class per month for 4 months) and one of our students was NOT a GGCS member, that would be $5 x 4 classes - $20 for the session for just that one (1) student. 6. The classroom is used each Saturday from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm so if we wanted to use the classroom we will have to pick another day and/or time. 7. The classroom is located in San Anselmo behind the Redhill Shopping Center on Sir Francis Drake Blvd. Now for the questions: 1. Is there interest by members of our CIG to use the GGCS's classroom? 2. If yes, are we willing to pay a reasonable fee for members of our CIG who are NOT members of GGCS? I briefly discussed with the classroom coordinator the possibility of GGCS charging us a fee based on some other formula such as a per session fee for non-members of the GGCS. For example, if we have 20 participants attending a 4 class session (i.e. one (1) session per month for 4 months) and 10 are members of GGCS and 10 are not, rather than pay a $5.00 per class for a non-member, could we pay a per session fee to be determined by the Board of the GGCS? This could be based on 20 students per session times the number of classes at some reduced rater to keep our costs down. He thought the Board might consider this if there was a possibility some of our CIG members might join the GGCS. 3. What other day and/or time would be our choices since the Saturday 10:00 am to 12:00 pm time is taken? They do have several other classes which meet in the classroom but without looking at their classroom schedule, I don't know which week night would be available. The suggestion was made that we ask for Saturday from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm since that was open. He also said Sunday was open but I'm not in favor of doing our classes on Sunday. I hope you find this information helpful. If any of this is not clear or you have a question, please contact me. Once we have the answers to the questions (1 - 3) and they are positive, then I will contact the GGCS Board and make a presentation to them. If the answers are negative, then we can fall back and regroup. End