Year Seven– 2005-2006

REVIEW OF 2006 by Robert Stewart

President Robert Stewart gave his Annual Report for the Year 2005/2006

This past year he said, began with President Merv Brindley holding office for only five months, as in April 2006 he resigned from this position and the committee due to health reasons.

Robert thanked Merv for all he achieved during that time.

Election of Officers .

The present committee was asked to stand down and Ed Crane took the chair. Details from the completed nomination forms were shown on the screen and after the membership had voted for these members to be appointed as the committee for the coming year their positions were confirmed.

There was some concern apparent as the position of President and Secretary were not filled. However from the floor the past President Merv Brindley who had retired due to ill health earlier in the year now stepped up to fill the position of President. Gwen Swaby our Social Officer also agreed to once more fill the position of Secretary.   

Meetings of the members continued to be held on the fourth Monday of each month at the Senior Citizens centre with 124 financial members initially that eventually grew to 140.

Unfortunately due to health reasons Merv Brindley had to step down from the Presidents position in April and Robert Stewart, assumed the position of acting President until the AGM in October.

We are most appreciative of all that Merv has achieved with his friendly and approachable manner while in office and we wish him all the best for the future and a full recovery.

Retiring President Robert and Secretary Sheila. Pictured at the AGM meeting.

Speakers.

Other guest speakers included Senior Constables Mark Kibbler and Amanda Ahern on Community Policing, Norm Cox on Reverse Mortgages, Solicitor John Rayburn on wills and estates, Linda Gaidzionis from Centrelink and ladies from the WA Seabird Rescue Group.

Adam from 'Mandurah Comp-u-teq', as a stand in for David Merendino, combined in a discussion with Tom and Peter Dell that helped us learn about the ' USB Thumb Drive' and ‘Blue Tooth’ and also how important a proper security set up is. The ThumbDrive™ USB Flash Drive is the world's first and smallest portable storage drive that plugs directly into the USB port of any computer and can store virtually any digital data from documents, and presentations, to music and photos and fits nicely on your keychain or in your pocket.

In May, member Russell Masters spoke on the topic of Genealogy- Family History, research and how it is done.

Russell started his talk by explaining why family history interest has become so popular.

He said we are curious to learn about our relatives and where our roots come from.

Start with ourselves, he said then our siblings, parents and grandparents and where possible find the oldest living relative to check actual memories.

There are many other services and researchers on line. In England for example births and deaths can be located in London, plus the war office records.

Russell advised starting with a target date. Find information from electoral rolls, phone books, newspapers the libraries and State records.

There are in fact many ways to access genealogy on the internet and using software such as the Family Tree Maker assists the task.

Kath Heywood from the Mormon Church gave a further talk on Genealogy in September.

First Click Program

In March we learned that Angela Lewis, who was previously a member of PSN, was appointed as co-ordinator of the Senior Citizens Centre. She became instrumental in encouraging and helping us apply for a grant to run the ‘First/Second Click Program’ as directed by the WA Department of Education and Training, which if approved would provide opportunities for local people as beginners to learn how to use computers and help with computer usage through out the Peel Region.

Subsequently, after applying for such a grant we were notified that Peel SeniorNet was successful in the grant application for the ‘First Click’ program.

Our contract was for training sixty beginners during a 12 month period with 10 courses of 6 people in four weekly 3 hour lessons. This was co-ordinated by Angela Lewis and the classes run by Iris Harrison and Tom Hoffman.

Those who complete the lessons will then have the opportunity to join the Peel SeniorNet Association and take advantage of help from the ‘Buddy’ in their area.

Training

Tom reported that this has been relaxed recently due to the high demand of the ‘First Click’ program, which is going extremely well and the first students are trickling through with the opportunity to avail themselves of using our own PSN Buddies for any help they may need after completing their course.

The computer room was made available to PSN members for training courses run by Tom and computer books were purchased and made available to members interested to learn more of the Microsoft programs. Other occasions were made available for advice and help to members on any problems or special interest questions they may have.

Photo Group.

Quite a few members took advantage of courses that were run by Kath Sheehan and held in the computer room for beginners interested in digital photography.

Members Register

Ed Crane has done an excellent job in updating and maintaining the register of members in a format that can be continued by whoever takes over from him in the future.

Meet the Buddies

On the 15 th March in the computer room members who had joined during the last 6 months were able to meet the PSN Buddies and all found the afternoon very helpful as well as putting a face to someone you may like to contact for assistance in your area.

Seniors Week . 21 st – 28 th October .

Our contribution was to provide an opportunity to ‘Drop in and Chat’ in the computer room for those interested in learning more about PSN. Demonstrations and Slide shows were shown of various PSN functions, activities and outings held during the past years.

PSN were invited to a Tea Dance which completed the week with ‘Glenn Miller’ style music performed by the Perth and Mandurah Concert Bands and put on by the Senior Citizen Centre.

Social Outings

Gwen Swaby organised a varied and interesting number of Social outings during the year that included visits to Busselton, Abingdon Miniature Village with the Tulips at their best and of course the delicious morning tea. Those that didn’t go missed out on something special.

Morning tea at Meadow Springs Golf Club, Social evening at the Rotunda, Sundowner BBQ at the Foreshore, Morning teas at Merchants Tea House and WA Botanical were also memorable occasions enjoyed by many.

A photo taken by Chris.Jackson of the beautiful Botanical Gardens that we visited recently.