WHAT we do

Project Description:
Members of the Big Bear Computer Club provide computer training, free of charge, to residents of the Big Bear Valley. The hands-on training includes Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel plus we have a help line with various club members manning the help line on such subjects as: Window for Beginners; Outlook Express; MS Word; Digital Photos; CD Burning; and Quicken.

It's a mountain community with 20,000 residents that have no other resource in getting computer training; thereby, the computer tutoring has become a very essential part of the community. Residents and students are taking advantage of this community service provided by the Computer Club. Members of the community attend these classes to enhance their learning experience for work, school and just personal use. Sue Crane, Editor of the Computer Newsletter, "Bearly Bytes" enhances the training by having informative articles on all phases dealing with computers, software and programs.. These newsletters are available to the public at various locations. Bearly Bytes has been the winner of SWRUGC and APCUG newsletter contests.

Since the Big Bear Computer Club does not have a computer lab to provide the community this training, we have developed a partnership with the Public Library-- Literacy Program to use their computers for these training classes.

How we will use award money:
If the Big Bear Computer Club wins monies through the Jerry Award 2004, we would use the monies for a laptop to be used at the Computer Club monthly meetings.

For the last couple of years, one of our computer club members drags around a computer to the meetings and sets it up and takes it down every meeting. Where we meet, there is no storage available for us to leave the computer at our meeting place. We do need a computer at our meetings for presentations of various programs, for Speakers, for tutorial trainings sessions and to access the Internet. We have had fundraisers and sell 50/50 chances at meetings but this has not been enough money to buy our laptop. The monies we have made through these fundraisers had to be spent on upgrading piece meal the club's computer which is dragged around from meeting to meeting. This is not good for the computer.

Our membership ranges from novices to computer experts and they all look forward to our computer meetings to either share their expertise with the novices or for novices to learn the ins and outs of their computers and software programs. It is essential to have a good working computer at our meetings. Our membership has been increasing by leaps and bounds with over 80 members in the club anxious to learn, network and share experiences with each other.