Sorry folks, me again. I just had the presence of mind to check the "from" line of the actual email and it shows Tony's address. All The Best Ed -----Original Message----- From: vicsireland-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:vicsireland-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Tony Murray Sent: 13 April 2006 15:49 To: VICS Subject: [vicsireland] Chairperson's Update Hi VICS Members, Here is an update on what is going on with VICS at the moment. As you will know, Paul Traynor has moved our lists to the new provider freelists.org. Co-operation from all members with him throughout this change over would be most appreciated. I want to thank Paul for finding us this new home, and for carrying out the change over process. Our lobbying group, headed up by Tim Culhane, are working hard on the accessible ATM project. One of our major successes this term was to work with National Irish Bank to get an accessible ATM in their branch at Baggot Street. The accessible machine was installed as a pilot, but through our links with the bank we have managed to get an assurance that it will stay in the branch for the foreseeable future. This is wonderful news in itself, but it doesn't stop there. National Irish Bank, who are owned by another overseas bank, are now beginning to roll out a new ATM infrastructure. Each existing NIB ATM is going to be replaced. The new machines being installed will contain the hardware necessary to become accessible. All that is required is to install the accessible software. In the roll out of the new machines, the software will not be available, but we will continue to lobby to have this software installed. To date, our contacts with NIB have always been positive, so we are confident the installation of this software will happen in time. The lobbying group drafted a paper outlining the benefits of accessible ATM's both to banks and banking customers (disabled or not). Through our links with some of the major banks here in Ireland, we have fed this paper directly to departments specifically concerned with ATM's. So it is now in the hands of relevant bank managers who are in a position to make decisions on this subject. It also has been given to the Irish Bank Officials Association, who are in effect the union concerned with Bank Employees. Each bank will be lobbied in the future to make their ATM's accessible, using National Irish Bank as a bench mark. I would like to thank Tim Culhane for his excellent work on this. The project is ongoing, but to date, it has been unbelievably successful. Our Research group, headed up by Brian Dalton has been working hard this term in the area of technology evaluation. This project was devised last year, but really only got off the ground in this term. The group was tasked with evaluating software and where possible hardware for accessibility and usability. Through these evaluations, it was hoped the members of the group would become proficient enough in the use of the technology to offer technical support through our email list to members who themselves have started to work with the systems. There are a number of recommendations which will soon be released to the members, with an excellent knowledge bank available to those of us who wish to experiment based on the research group's findings. Thanks to Brian and his team for his work on this. Our website, which is being handled by Natasha Miskella is ever evolving. As you all know, the official launch of this website will be taking place on May 12th (more about this later). At the moment we are implementing a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. Brian Dalton, as part of his roll in the Research group is liaising with Natasha on this. If you navigate to our website you will see phase one of this evolving FAQ page, so do refer to it for technical information ( http://www.vicsireland.org/faqs/faqs.htmll). Our links with the BCAB are still being forged, and this is one of the most exciting things VICS has ever entered in to. The current initiative is to share technical FAQ on both our websites. We have worked out a plan to have a single FAQ page, which can be updated with information from members of the BCAB and members of VICS alike. This page will be branded with both BCAB and VICS logos, and will have a common interface which will comfortably link in with both our site's look and feel. We will of course inform you of progress on this, and announce the live date for the newly formed common FAQ page. As mentioned, Natasha is our web designer and we are very lucky to have her. Thanks Natasha for all you've done, feedback from the VICS members on the website has been excellent. As you will soon find out, our Audio magazine Infovics is now on CD. This new departure for Infovics could only have happened through the good work of Stuart Lawler and Liam Duke in the Drumcondra Project. VICS are very grateful to both Liam and Stuart, and our new look high spec magazine is going down very well among the membership. The quarterly magazine is also available of course on our website ( http://www.vicsireland.org/infovics/infovics.htmll). VICS, with the help of Ronan MCGuirk have drafted a white paper entitled "An Information Society for All - the nonvisual way". This paper has been submitted to the Irish Computer Society, and will be officially launched on May 12th. This paper is available for all to read on our website ( http://www.vicsireland.org/information/white_paper.html). We would like to sincerely thank Ronan for his excellent work on this project. We have planned a day of training for our less advanced computer users. It was hoped that the training day would take place before the AGM, but unfortunately the date for this had to be pushed out by a couple of months. As you can appreciate the committee have been very busy in the past year, but still this slippage of dates was regrettable. Be assured though, that everyone who has contacted me regarding this day of training will be notified when the new date is set. This project simply must happen, and I am totally committed to seeing it through to fruition. When the new committee is elected, I will work with whoever will become responsible for this project. The two major things occupying the current VICS Committee at the moment are our upcoming twentieth anniversary celebration and the VICS Annual General Meeting. As you probably know, VICS has been in existence twenty years (I was six when they got together!). On May 12th we will celebrate this. At this event, we will officially launch our new website and the white paper described above. As VICS members, you are all invited to mark this great event with us all. The twentieth anniversary celebration will take place in the Tara suite, The Royal Dublin Hotel O'Connell Street, starting at 7:30 PM on Friday May 12th. When the line up of speakers has been nailed down we will circulate the program for the night. We hope to have the founding members of the society along, and all people who have served as chair person of VICS down the years. As the date draws nearer, the committee are working extremely hard to set this event up, and I think those present will really enjoy what we have planned. The list of key speakers is extremely impressive, more on this in the next couple of weeks. An excellent night is guaranteed, and we encourage you all to attend and enjoy this great occasion as VICS members. Not only will you witness presentations from our key speakers, but you can relax and have a drink with your fellow members and the other people who will attend the event. The VICS AGM will take place the next day. The venue is the Irish Computer Society headquarters Crescent Hall, Mount Street Crescent, Dublin 2. The meeting will commence at 2:00 PM sharp. Members can renew their subscriptions on the day; our treasurer Joan Kearns will be on hand to help you. Any motions for the AGM should be sent to our secretary Gerry Ellis ( gerry.ellis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx). Motions will be accepted up until two weeks before the AGM. I would like to thank Gerry Ellis, Brian Dalton, Tim Culhane, Ronan MCGuirk and our colleagues in the Irish Computer Society for their help on setting these two events up. We are publicising the twentieth anniversary as much as possible. Articles have been written for various technology publications, not to mention a press release advertising the celebration. Let's hope this time and effort will be worthwhile; all of our work is being done for you the VICS membership, so your support will be welcome on the night. The committee are meeting next Tuesday to put the final touches to everything, and at that point we will be on the final straight. I will post another update to you all in early May to let you know how things stand before the end of this Committee's term. We of course value your feedback, so feel free to post to the email list on any of the above. Regards, Tony Murray Chairperson **************************************************************************** **** This document is strictly confidential and is intended for use by the addressee unless otherwise indicated. This email has been scanned by an external Email Security System. Allied Irish Banks **************************************************************************** **** -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.4.1/310 - Release Date: 12/04/2006