With the holidays fast approaching, don’t forget to use our Amazon Smile link at http://smile.amazon.com/ch/06-1304936 if you plan to shop at Amazon.com. Amazon donates a portion of your purchase to DACS at no cost to you when using this link.
It might also be a good time to consider gifting a DACS membership to a relative, friend, or co-worker. Give a gift that keeps on giving every month for an entire year. Share your appreciation of our newsletter, website, SIGs, and the great presentations we have at our general meetings, like “The Internet of Things”, presented by Steve Posick last month. On November 4th, we have scheduled what promises to be a fascinating topic: “Secure Digital Communications”, by our very own Bruce Preston.
For the past 25 years DACS has had a great tradition of helping others gain expertise with their computers. We have exposed our members to new technology, software, and uses for our computing investments. We have inspired some members to transform what may have been a casual interest in computers to a career change. From mobile to desktop, we have informed, enlightened, and educated our members over the years. As part of DACS 25th year anniversary preparations, I want each of us to reflect on how DACS has benefitted us. Just think about it for now. We will solicit your testimonials later, as part of our quarter century celebration.
Spreading the word about DACS
I have been busy this past month evangelizing DACS. I recently participated at the Danbury City Center Merchant Mixer in October, where I was introduced to some key area business leaders by DACS members Mike Kaltschnee (Danbury Hackerspace) and Dennis Daugherty (SCORE). I was introduced to Andrea Gartner, the Executive Director of the Danbury City Center, who offered DACS exposure with their weekly mailing (which has a far greater circulation than our DACS mailings).
Last month you were all invited to attend an Apple-sponsored Business Event entitled “Marketing your Business” at the Danbury Mall. I attended this event and found it very interesting and useful. While I was there I was introduced to Denise Del Mastro, Executive Director of the Greater New Milford Chamber of Commerce. I was invited to their NMCC ‘Business Scene’ and networked with area business leaders and exposed them to DACS. I discovered that using DACS on a nametag is a great conversation starter when people ask “What is DACS?”. I find it discouraging that relatively few people know about us but am encouraged by how many new faces we will see as we continue to spread the word.
Please do your part by asking a relative, friend or coworker to come to our next general meeting.
New SIGs and other activities
The Cloud Computing SIG is ready to launch and two other new SIGs are in the works. As a result of ongoing negotiations with Microsoft, they may be willing to co-host a Microsoft Office SIG, in which many of you expressed an interest, at their Danbury store. If you haven’t seen it, they have a very nice walled-off area, very conducive to SIG meetings, and trained staff who may volunteer their time to help out with the SIG. There is also a possibility that they will co-host a Windows SIG if there is enough interest. I will announce more on this later as we work out the details.
If you would like to organize or suggest a SIG or workshop, please e-mail us at NewSIG@dacs.org. Some SIGs and workshops I would like to resurrect include: Software Development (VBA, C#, ASP.Net, Javascript, HTML5, etc.), Database design & development (SQL Server, MS Access, MySQL, Oracle, etc.), Graphic design , Multi Media, Video, Social Media, Small business topics, and Financial (investment software). I want to hear your suggestions.
Thank You
Charlie Bovaird has been an active member of DACS and key player in many of our activities continuously since near the very beginning of DACS. He was formerly our Treasurer, is a reliable and dependable contributor at many workshops and training sessions, and has been the custodian of our DACS membership database during most of the past 20 years. He is working to fully transition it to CiviCRM, where most of our mailings currently originate. We will soon be expanding our CiviCRM mailing list to include all former members who still have valid e-mail addresses, going as far back as 1990.
Charlie doesn’t hesitate to step in where there is a need. This month he spent hours photographing and documenting 119 physical assets at our Resource Center for later valuation. Thank you, Charlie, for doing so much for so long on behalf of DACS. It is greatly appreciated.
Opportunities
There are many opportunities to help DACS. Please let me know that you want to support DACS in any way by e-mailing me at Opportunities@dacs.org.
If you have suggestions on how we can do a better job announcing DACS events and attracting new members, please send e-mail to PR@dacs.org.
From mobile to desktop, we inform, enlighten, and educate.
– Dick Gingras, President