The November meeting of the TI-Chips was opened by yours truly. Chips' President, Fred Ialacci, came in a little late and was feeling a bit under the weather. We hope Fred is feeling better. The reading of the minutes from the October meeting was waived. Lin Shaw reported, as best as his memory would allow, that the Chips' treasury was doing nicely and that he had received all moneys collected from the meetings he was unable to attend.
Membership Chairman, John Parken, was unable to attend this month. Therefore there was no membership report. Les Kee said there was no activity in the disk library to report. I gave Deanna Sheridan the 2 gig hard drive I had promised and seven 250 meg drives were given to Les Kee for his astronomy project. Deanna expressed thanks for the 2 gig hard drive for her church youth group computer system. Les said the mirror-like surface on the hard drive disks might be able to be put together to form a parabolic mirror for a refractory telescope. Les said this was an idea he had been toying with for some time. I hope Les will remember the TI-Chips when he receives the patent for his Hard Drive Disk Telescope Mirror.
Lin Shaw brought in a bunch of TI stuff he had around the house. Lin said he would dumpster anything that was not taken. There was some neat stuff including a free standing double SSSD disk drive.
Les Kee talked about the advantages of LINUX over Windows98. I stated that this operating system, although gaining popularity, will still need a "bridge" to the WIN98 OS to gain wide spread acceptance (Much like Apple had to do with its Macintosh computers and the MS-DOS systems). Les replied that LINUX does have such a "bridge" built into the system.
Many very important items were discussed at this meeting.
Harry Hoffman informed us that Chips member, Terri Babione, is recovering from surgery, and Jack Koryta told us that his father was recently placed in a nursing home. The TI-Chips wish nothing but the best for Terri Babione and Jack Koryta's father.
I brought in several samples of Jim Peterson Achievement Award certificates that could be issued to the winners of this honor in 2000. I asked for a group opinion of which certificate motif would be acceptable. The Chips chose the certificate with the marble background. It was stated that the marble background made the certificate a very attractive one to be framed. I also read the list of Jim Peterson Achievement Award nominations I had received so far.
We also talked about the Chicago Faire and the MAUG e-newsletter. The Faire was considered to have been a well organized and successful affair, and the MAUG newsletter is still an ambitious effort. Speaking of newsletters, Harry Hoffman agreed to redesign the masthead of our newsletter to reflect that it is now a TI-Chips publication only. It was suggested that the masthead have TI-Chips in a super size font with, The Cleveland Area TI-99/4A User Group in a smaller font size, in brackets and just below TI-Chips. Harry also said he will change the header on his return address label on the newsletter. Fred Ialacci suggested that Harry include which library room the TI-Chips meetings will be held in the club's calendar.
Harry stated that he was making 45 hard copies of the newsletter and mailing 40 out to subscribers and user groups. Harry stated that he found he was mailing more than one newsletter to the same address, but to different recipients. Harry said this practice has be stopped. Harry then brought up the fact that the dues structure of the TI-Chips was outdated. There was a discussion about revising the club's dues and it was unanimously decided that the TI-Chips dues will now be $10 for individual and $15 for family memberships. It was also decided that the Newsletter Only membership would be dropped. Away members would have library priviledges.
I said that the December meeting was the meeting at which the next year's officers were to be elected. Fred Ialacci remarked that it had been a long time since we had anyone in the office of CO-President (Vice-president). Therefore it was suggested, and unanimously accepted, that the office of CO-President (Vice-president) be dropped from the TI-Chips' organization roster.
The December meeting will also be the TI-Chips' Christmas party in the LARGE meeting room at the library. Fred reminded the Chips to bring goodies for the party.
We are all sure that Fred left the November meeting feeling much better. Fred won the 50:50 raffle. Congratulations, Fred.