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A Call for ParticipationStub Watkins, CUGGDecember 1997 |
After hearing the comments made about participating members from Don Wiegel, Dave Helmer and others, I sat down and questioned myself about my motives.
After retiring from more than 35 years of working with computers, I found that I needed someone to whom I could talk “computer language.” I worked in Loveland and the people that I worked with there were not in my “social circle.” Thus, CUGG to the rescue. I found many people willing to spend a couple of hours each month talking in our crazy language. It was great and I could hardly wait until the next meeting.
Before long, either Dave or Don or maybe Jim Gossman talked me into writing something for the newsletter. I really didn't want to, but I felt that if I belonged, I should participate. Over the course of the next couple of years, I wrote some 15 or 20 small articles, mostly about software that I thought someone else might find interesting. The point I'm trying to make is simple, IF YOU BELONG, PARTICIPATE!
If you remember, the first hour of the November [1997] meeting was spent talking about many things, many subjects and many opinions. This, to me, is what the organization is all about.
Many of us experience small (or even large) problems in the course of our daily or weekly sessions on the computer. We can't always find a solution either in the manual (who reads manuals?) or in our trial and error efforts. Why not call, or better yet e-mail, one of the members that seems to know about these things and see if you can get help from them?
Those of us that have strong feelings about our group, feel that helping each other is the major reason for the group's existence. Case in point: I know a man [who] after many years with Ma Bell, retired and bought a PC to do his own thing. He has little or no experience with PC's but has attended a class or two at Aims. I talked him into coming to a meeting almost a year ago. He attended once and has not returned. When I asked why, his response was that all of the people at the meeting were smarter than he was and he was afraid to ask a dumb question.
Maybe some of you feel this way. SO WHAT! Everyone starts from the beginning, some of us have been doing it longer, that's the reason that we may seem to know more. One of the reasons that we are there is to help those of us who are new to PC's. No question is a dumb question if the answer makes your life a little easier, a little more fun. Ask—if one of us does not know an answer, maybe someone knows where to search.
Another benefit of a question and answer session is that you usually get more than one opinion about the solution. At least this gives you a choice of possible solutions. I'm sure that anyone in the group would be willing to help make your computer seem like a warm friend instead of a cold hard enemy. Feel free to e-mail me any time. I'll at least answer, maybe give you the information you need, or give you the name of someone I think knows more than I about the subject.
One final word: PARTICIPATE!!!!!