100th Presentation at the OPL

In a February 9, 2013 email, Chris Taylor announces that over 100 presentations were done:

I was just doing some clean-up and noticed that a momentous occasion passed last November 27th. That evening, the OPCUG gave its 100th presentation at the Ottawa Public Library.

We are now up to 108 presentations. Not bad considering we started in May, 2008. We had 7 presentations that year. For the 8 month period from September, 2012 to June, 2013 we will have 66 presentations!

We keep expanding the list of branches. While we only gave presentations at 2 branches in 2008 (North Gloucester and Carlingwood), we are now up to 18 branches ( North Gloucester, Carlingwood, Nepean Centrepointe, Greenboro, Alta Vista, Sunnyside, Hazeldean, Elmvale Acres, Rosemount, Orléans, Manotick, Ruth E. Dickinson, Stittsville, Main, Blackburn Hamlet, Rideau, Beaverbrook and Cumberland)

Thanks to [Chris Taylor,] Alan German, Andrea Wells, and Jeff Dubois for all the time and effort given in developing and giving presentations!

If anyone else wants to get involved with giving presentations at the OPL, let me know.

Chris

In a follow up email, Jocelyn Doire ask him if he could write the genesis for the history page, here it is:

In November, 2007, Evelyn Housch from the North Gloucester branch of the Ottawa Public Library emailed me to say she had come across a review of FotoFusion Pro I had written for the February 2007 issue of the newsletter. Evelyn was organizing programs for her branch and was wondering if I could put together a session on electronic scrapbooking.

After some thought, I let her know that I didn't think I could do that topic justice but that I would be willing to give sessions on some other topics.

In the spring of 2008, we started with 3 sessions: Alan German with Linux 101; and me with Computer Security and How to Buy a Digital Camera.

From those modest beginnings, the programs blossomed and as other branches of the Ottawa Public Library heard of them, demand grew.

While Alan and I gave the presentations in the early years, in the spring of 2001, Andrea Wells and I added a presentation on the good and bad of social media sites. When Andrea moved back out west in 2012, Jeff Dubois picked up Andrea's part of that presentation.

On November 27, 2012, we gave our 100th presentation at the OPL. It was at the Nepean Centrepointe, and was on "Clicking, Flicking and Tweeting: Social Networking Controversy" - a session that was given first at the Jan 12, 2011 OPCUG meeting.

To give a sense of just how this has taken off in popularity, it took four and a half years to get to 100 presentations. With the current scheduled sessions through the end of June, in less than a year, we will add 42 more sessions to the list.

We have currently given presentations at 18 branches of the Ottawa Public Library. I would like to thank all the OPL event coordinators for their assistance. We have enjoyed their enthusiasm. They have made it easy for us by providing facilities, presentation equipment, and registration services.

For details on upcoming presentations the OPCUG gives at the Ottawa Public Library, see the OPCUG's presentations page or the Ottawa Public Library Programs page.

Chris Taylor
President, Ottawa PC Users' Group