CFOG's PIP, January 1987, Volume 5 No. 3, Whole No. 51, page 1

From the President's Desk:

Traditionally, january is the time to reflect over the past year and congratulate ourselves for our successes and make excuses for our failures. I considered writing about something else this month, but I couldn't think of anything to say. Besides, why buck tradition?

1986 was a year of reevaluation and making grand plans for CFOG. We didn't get everything finished on the timetable we might have liked (what volunteer organization over does?) but I think we've made significant progress toward most of our goals. Here are a few of the highlights of 1986:

- We survived! 1986 was the year that many user groups closed their doors and succumbed to the realities of a dwindling membership. We ended the year with about 312 members -- up from a meager 266. That's enough to keep us in the black with our modest budget, but we'd still like to see it over 500 again.

- We made good progress in our commitment to support non-Osborne CP/M computers. Most of the new members who joined us in 1986 own Epson's, Kaypro's and Commodore 128's. We also resolved to support MS-DOS computers this year. I hope that 1987 will be the year that we expand our MS-DOS support to the same high standards that we've been able to offer to CP/M users all along.

- We converted the disk library to Osborne double density format this year. We made a commitment to support as many 5 1/4 inch formats as possible in the future. This will include all standard double sided CP/M formats as well as the 360K IBM format for MS-DOS files. We bought some new equipment for this purpose, but we have made little progress toward the goal. All of the current volunteers have high workloads already, and this project needs someone who can appreciate it's importance and dedicate the effort to see it through.

- We doubled our remote system access in 1986, adding CFOG II with another 35 Megabytes of programs available at modem speeds up to 2400 baud, 24 hours a day. We further made the commitment to expand our remote access further, and bought the hardware to start developing a high capacity multiuser system.

- 1986 was the year that we commissioned Ben Cohen to rewrite our Articles of Incorporation to allow us to seek charitable institution status with the IRS. Ben has done an excellent job with this, and we will be presenting the new document for approval by the general membership at the 1987 Annual Meeting in April.

There were several unsung heroes this year, who've worked behind the scenes to keep things running smoothly and help provide the services that we've all come to depend on. They hold no offices, and rarely get the recognition they deserve. I would be remiss if I didn't mention them here:

Cedric Chernick	Membership Chairman
Ben Cohen	Editor of PIP
Dave Jacobsohn	Meeting notices coordinator
Vince Kaczmar	Disk copying coordinator
Steve Lucius	New Member Disks

I'd like to add my personal thanks to these men, to Tom Ferguson, our former treasurer, and to the current Board of Directors. You've made it an honor to be President of CFOG this year.

Bill Kuykendall