FACUG Spring Conference Report by Stu Silverman

I just returned from the Region 5  - 14^th Annual Spring Conference.
I first need to say that I am so proud of the FACUG Board of Directors and especially our new President Marie Vesta. We worked as a TEAM and the results were quite evident. All the participants both registrants and vendors gave extremely positive feedback.

The presentations were well above average; we tried out some new ideas and took some risks. We relocated our Conference from the central part of the state to a small town about a half hour drive north of Tampa on Florida’s West Coast. We moved from the Kissimmee Civic Center to the Zephyrhills High School. We raised the registration fee and we attracted about 50 more participants than last year. We had 48 first timers.

For the first time, we extended an invitation to the entire Southeast Region; unfortunately for them no one took us up on our offer. Perhaps they will rethink this and next year come to Florida and experience a great event. We scheduled two bonus sessions for the entire group, yet still had time for 26 individual workshops and 5 Keynote meal sponsors.

Friday evening was traditionally a token event which many of our members felt served little purpose. We served cheese and crackers and crudités as we had in the past; however, this year we also had sandwiches that were delicious. Marie Vesta wanted to make this a fun evening and we actually did have fun. “Doc” Dockery made a most enjoyable and informative presentation and showed a video on the direction of technology, to everyone’s amazement, he even wore a jacket and tie.

This was followed by a computerized technology Trivia Game by Dave Gerber. Those who got a correct answer were able to make a selection from a grab bag of wonderful prizes donated by Dave. Everyone left Friday evening with a good feeling and eager to see what the rest of the weekend had in store.

This set a wonderful tone for the ensuing conference, as many of our registrants started off with selecting some very nice prizes.  In the process, we were able to turn a drastically red bottom line to a very black bottom line.   The Lupton Food Service that catered our meals was so pleased by the feedback he had been receiving the whole weekend, that they voluntarily upgraded our final luncheon meal at no additional cost. We did not have the Keynote Presentations in the same room that we ate in. The presenters did not have to complete with clanging dishes and on going dinner conversations. After the meal, we adjourned to what we referred to as the Stage Area just outside the food area. Our vendors were generally quite pleased with the energy that was generated this year; in fact, one of the vendors was so pleased with what he saw, that they offered to sponsor our entire Fall Conference. What a wonderful direction to be moving in. By taking calculated risks and trying many new concepts we discovered old ideas are not necessarily the best ideas for today’s needs.  

 Jay Ferron, APCUG President, presented among other things, some new directions APCUG is looking into, and made a very persuasive case for the new risks that APCUG might be undertaking. He discussed rotating Regional Conferences around the country, rather than sticking to Las Vegas. He spoke of new benefits of membership such as the soon to be operational SharePoint sight where User Groups can share all sorts of relevant information with each other. Another concept presented was the convergence of technologies’, and we need to look at expanding our focus from being strictly a computer oriented organization to additional computer related technologies’, such as smart phones, PDA’s. MP3 players, Digital photography groups etc.  He spoke of the upgraded web hosting facilities that should be operational shortly. Jay expressed the logic of groups working together to make each of us stronger. He had quite a powerful message.  

 Sam Wexler and Tom Thiel presented at another bonus session regarding techniques for doubling your clubs membership. This same presentation will be made at the APCUG Leadership Development Conference in May 17 & 18 2008 in West Nyack NY.   Each and every vendor presentation was stimulating and interested their audience.   I had been touting this as a not to be missed event. I am very happy to say that we hit a grand slam. To top it all off  the 150 attendees of the 14^th Annual Conference walked away with some wonderful gifts.

Trend-Micro provided a fully functional copy of their 2008 Internet Security Suite to each and every person who visited their vendor table.

Microsoft came through in a big way.

They set up a lounge for the first time with 6 computers so participants could access their email and they had extremely knowledgeable and competent technical personnel to weave through to intrigues of Vista unpon request.

In addition they supplied several copies of Vista Ultimate, Office 2007, Games as door prizes. 

 Due to our many generous supporters, at the end of the conference, we had a door prize for each person in addition to that which Dave Gerber donated from his former radio show. What a way to conclude such an exciting, interesting, educational and stimulating weekend.  

For more pictures and a description of the program, you can access the http://www.facug.org/ website and see what it is we are talking about. Kudos to FACUG. They had the courage to try many new concepts and swept the attendees off their feet.