Presidential Musings May 2021

David Stonier-Gibson

Successful Covid-be-gone party Sunday 18^th April

I think I can confidently declare the Party at Moorabbin on Sunday 18^th April a success. We all had fun with frivolous games, pizza, and a lot of socialising.

Email Transition

The transition to Google continues, and is now roughly 65% complete.

The migration team are migrating 1400 member accounts, of which 900 have already been created in their new quarters in Google Workspace. 800 of the members affected have already logged in to their new accounts and are using them for their Melb PC email. The Transition support team will shortly contact the remaining 100 members offering further assistance to make the change. The accounts still awaiting migration will follow, first those where the member is using the account for email, then the others.

It is important to understand that during the transition, particularly for those members who are already migrated to Google Workspace, that you have two separate accounts with the same email address yourname@melbpc.org.au. One account with Microsoft allowing you access to Yammer and the member-only areas of the Melb PC website, and one account with Google for email and other Google Workspace features.

At present the migration process is focused exclusively on email, but once that stage is completed, members using the OneDrive cloud storage service will be contacted with advice on moving their files. Finally the successor to Yammer will be selected after consultation with Yammer users, and put into use.

Thank you to the transition team for all your hard work!

Resumption of Home Visit Assist program

Cedric Wyndham posted on Yammer:

“All club members are invited to comment on how we should open the Home Visit Assist program.

To allow everyone to see what others have suggested, this discussion is located on the teams site, at https://teams.microsoft.com/_#/conversations/Home%20Visit%20Assist?threadId=19:32c1521fc2fa4b089bbda74c2d6eb705@thread.skype&ctx=channel.

This is a valuable program for club members who for one reason or another (usually medical issues) cannot attend meetings where someone could help with problems, and the iHelp team cannot fix a problem over the phone.

I would appreciate further feedback on what COVID precautions we should be taking, in view of the risks when club volunteers are visiting often elderly and infirm members.”

Committee resignation

I have no pleasure in reporting that Paul Hattam has resigned from Committee. Paul moved out of the City last year as a result of Covid, and his work and new location make it too difficult for him to continue. Paul was important in establishing the Coder Dojo, which is involving kids and parents, and in general transformation of the club.

Thank you, Paul, for your contribution.

New Honorary Life Member

A special general meeting was conducted in April, coincident with the monthly meeting, and voted Harry Lewis as an Honorary Life Member. Congratulations to Harry!

Vale Judy Bednar

I received the tragic news on Monday of the murder of one of our long-term members, Judy Bednar. Judy was quite prominent on our members-only online chat platform, Yammer, having started the very popular Chit Chat group. She was always ready with an insightful comment.

While I never met her in person, I enjoyed engaging with Judy online, as one of her “Clayton’s spouses”. The social interactions she engaged in online within the club were clearly important to her. From time to time she would express concerns for her safety from her mentally ill son, and frustration over the authorities’ inability to keep him in check. She also reported her efforts to physically secure her home, but it would seem the measures were insufficient to keep her safe.