> Geoff wicks wrote: > Last weekend several people castigated me for suggesting that Quanta should > be wound up. > > Now it's time to see if you are prepared to put your money where your mouths > are. > > I am not asking you to to do anything drastic like joining the committee, but > something more simple to show your support for Quanta and the Quanta > committee. > > Unlike most of you I have frequent unofficial contact with members of the > Quanta committee. In public they are frequently criticising the members for > their apathy. In private their language and emotions are much stronger. I > think it is fair to say they are bitter and disillusioned by the lack of > support from the members. They are having to double or triple up committee > duties to keep Quanta alive and feel a lack of concern and interest from the > members. Over the last year they have continually warned that the future of > Quanta was in jeopardy, but apparently no one was listening. At the moment > committee morale is at a low ebb and has been made worse by two factors. For > the first time a Quanta committee has had to be prepared for the real > possibility of advising the closure of the organisation at the next AGM. They > have also had to cope with a serious problem, the details of which I cannot > go into, that has proved more difficult to solve than first thought. Some > advanced plans > for Quanta on which the committee have done hours of preparation have had to > be put on hold. Inevitably this has led to some tension between members of > the committee. > > So I am asking you all now to give the committee a good morale boost. Below > is a list of the problems that face the committee. It is a little frightening > in its length. Let's now give the committee some detailed help and feedback > on these issues. > > > 1: QUANTA MAGAZINE > > Quanta has been unable to find a permanent editor for its magazine for about > 6 years. There is now an acute crisis with no editor or acting editor. > Producing a magazine is a highly skilled task and the people on the committee > with those skills are already overworked with other duties. I doubt if the > committee now has the resources to produce a magazine. What should they do in > these circumstances? I look forward eagerly to each new (electronic) edition but could not edit it. Clearly, the problem is finding someone with, not only enthusiasm, but experience and time. If an editor can not be found among the aging QL enthusiasts then the magazine sadly must cease to be published. I also look forward to receiving each edition of QL Today. I have on rare occasions made minor contributions to both journals. > 2: WEBSITE > > The Quanta website has not been updated for 6 months. Although Quanta has had > websites for about 10 years it has never mastered the art of keeping a > website up to date. How should they tackle this problem? I suppose Webmasters need similar qualifications/availability magazine editors. > 3: SHOWS > > Quanta can now manage only one show per year and the attendance is usually > low. Quanta is legally obliged to hold an AGM each year. Although in recent > years attendance has improved, three or four years ago attendance levels were > dangerously near the quorum. How should Quanta organise its AGMs in future? I have tried to attend every year - sadly that has not always been possible. That the AGM has been held in the middle of the UK seems very sensible. For me, shows have become largely places to meet other enthusiasts and to listen to presentations on what others are doing with their QLs (or emulators). There has been very little new software or hardware in recent years, though news in recent contributions here suggest that may change soon. > 4: SOUTH EAST > > Apart from a small, and, in my opinion, somewhat secretive subgroup, Quanta > has had no presence in the South East for almost 4 years. How do we > re-establish contact with the South East? > As a member of a group in the South-East of England, I am not aware of secrecy, just small size and, in my case, clashes of other engagements making my attendance at meetings infrequent. > 5: FINANCE > > Some years ago I wrote a piece in QL Today about the falling membership and > was accused of being anti-Quanta. When I wrote that item subscription income > covered more than 80% of expenditure. Today that figure is more like 60%. > Quanta has survived financially in recent years because Rich Mellor has > traded in second hand hardware on their behalf, but this is a diminishing > source of income. What would you do about the gap between subscription income > and expenditure? Would you be prepared to accept increasing the subscription > to a maximum of ?25? (And just a warning for those people who suggest > structurally using the capital. You would be condemning Quanta to a short > term future. In the worst case scenario you could count the years left on the > fingers of one hand.) > The subscription should be raised. £25 p.a. may be a bit on the high side for some like me - on pension! > 6: CONSTITUTION > > Several people suggested amending Quanta's constitution to save the > organisation. What specific amendments are you proposing? There is no need > for detailed proposals - that could be a job for the experts. Bear in mind > that constitutional amendments are not a quick fix. The earliest that > constitutional amendments affecting the committee could be implemented would > be 2013. When a voluntary organisation shrinks it can only survive if it is maintained by enthusiasts whose service to the organisation has no constitutional time limit. Time limits are intended to prevent organisations becoming someone's personal 'empire' and to give office holders a means of retiring without feeling guilty. There should always be the requirement for annual (re)-election of officers. > 7: SUBGROUPS > > This still seems to be a fairly successful area for Quanta. However they have > great autonomy and, with the exception of London, all the subgroups could > continue if Quanta closed down. Is there a need for more structured links > between the sub groups and the central organisation? There must be a lot of > things happening in subgroups that could be of interest to all members. They > are also in a position to provide valuable feedback to the committee. > When groups are small they perhaps have little to contribute! > 8: KEYBOARD MEMBRANES > > Not really a problem, but something for Quanta to boast about. Without Quanta > there would have been no new keyboard membranes. Any ideas for other good > uses for the capital? But don't forget you can't use the capital for both > projects and to make up shortfalls in the subscription income/expenditure > balance. > > > I want to add some personal comments about the South East situation. Five > years ago it was the life blood of Quanta, and Manchester and the north were > the poor relations. There was always at least one show, and often two a year, > whereas the north had just one show every two years. The last South East show > was held in 2007 and the decline in interest in Quanta (and perhaps the QL) > was frighteningly rapid. How often do you now see the former stalwarts of > Portslade and Byfleet contributing to this list? Almost never. > > At one time a quarter of Quanta members lived in London or the South East. I > expected to see some old friends at Quanta's centenary, but only one person > from the region attended. Quanta is not 100 years old! I was present at the quarter-centenary meeting. > It appears that Quanta now means nothing to them. > That is a warning for us all, > > I am a chemist (retired 20 years now) by profession and came into computers with the ZX81, wishing to understand a little more about the machines which were coming into our labs to control analytical instruments, reactors, etc., etc.. I was delighted to find that the QL allowed me to write simple programs in SuperBasic to do what I needed. I later progressed to writing a simulation of an emulsion polymerisation reaction which successfully solved some problems, still in SuperBasic. I have never attempted to delve into the arcane realms of machine code. I value my QL (now a Q40 - original version) and the ability to emulate it on my quad-core PC. However, we should not be surprised that most people use PCs; after all this exchange of views, news, etc. would not exist unless we were using PCs. To gain more new and/or returning users the QL needs email and we need to publicise that all the standard 'business' uses of the computer are available with the QL, coupled with some excellent and easily mastered facilities for writing ones own simple routines.
Long live the QL! Peter Baily _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
