The History of the Computer Club- Anguilla News


The History of the Computer Club

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The Anguilla Library Computer Club, has only been in existence for a few short years, but it has had an exciting history. Here is a chronology of the club's activities, with links to news articles:

Advanced Microsoft Word Course:
In order to raise funds and raise computer skills on Anguilla, the Computer Club is offering a professional class entitled "Microsoft Word 97 Comprehensive", taught by an Information Technology Expert from Canada.
- Learn the time saving techniques of professionals. Create stunning documents, reports and presentations. Create form letters, and take the hassel out of mail merging and much, much more...
- Course Manual: New Perspectives on Microsoft Word 97:Comprehensive
- When: March 22 - 26 1999 from 5:00PM - 7:00PM nightly
- Where: The Anguilla Library Computer Club, in the Arts and Crafts Building, The Valley, Anguilla.
Eight New PCs Installed January 1999. Donated by Canadian Dave Thomas and installed in marathon session by volunteers Leroy Hill, Griffin Webster, Tyler Close, and Bob Green, plus several students.
Web Page Class during Christmas break, 1998.
Hardware Class learns how to upgrade and repair PCs.
Bootcamp Graduation. Sept 1998
The Bootcamp Program Guide. August 1998
Start of Summer Bootcamp 98 for children and adults. July 1998.
Club is air conditioned, thanks to generous donation. June 1998.
Visual Basic Class, plus Assembling and Testing School Computers. May 1998.
Volunteer from Norway helps for 8 weeks. March 1998.
Acquired and outfitted a computer for a blind student. December 1997.
Success of the Primary School project and Summer Program 97. October 1997.
Primary School Project, to fix up old computers, find software, write a manual, and install in the schools. September 1997.
Ten Compaq 486s donated to club, enabling enhanced summer program for children, operated by club president Leroy Hill. July 1998.
New location in Arts and Crafts and visitors bearhing donations. May 1997.
Computer Club's First PC Fixup Party. April 1997.
The Anguilla Library Computer Club really appreciates the surplus computers that people have donated to us. But they are old and children are active and the weather in Anguilla is hard on electroncis, so we had accumulated 10 non-operational computers. To deal with the problem, we held a party for the student volunteers and invited everyone who knew anything about computer hardware. The broken PCs were spread out all over a giant table and our goal was to create one working computer out of them. We made the students do all the work.
We lubricated people's enhtusiasm with pizza and Ting. Result: three working PCs (two are 386, one is a 286). Just in time for 2 new monitors that arrived at the airport with a guest the same day. Now we just need another working SVGA monitor... The party was such fun and the students learned a great deal. Therefore, this is now going to be a monthly event. Next hardware fixit party is April 23rd. If you know how to fix PC and would like to help, and eat some homemade pizza, let us know.
Club is now a government-registered "Friendly Society". March 1997.
Club Gets Internet Access. March 1997.
Thanks to a generous Cable and Wireless donation of 20 hours of Internet access per month and the gift of a 33.6 Modem by Dick Peltier, the children of the computer club now have an Internet connection in the club room. We have started teaching them how to create web pages so that they can put every organization and business in Anguilla onto the net. To see an example student effort, visit Danny Laud's home page.
You technical types will appreciate this. The club's Pentium system was rented to the Financial Cryptography conference and came back configured as a UNIX system instead of a Microsoft Windows system. We left it that way so that we could use it to connect several PCs to the Internet through it's modem instead of just one. We quickly scrounged up a 5-port hub and as many spare network cards as we could and got a 3-PC network going. Now our high school enthusiasts are learning UNIX and networking as well as Windows.
Anyone coming to Anguilla soon who has a spare network card, please slip it in your suitcase and drop it off at the National Trust building in The Valley. Thanks!
Visitors to the Computer Club. February 1997.
Just a reminder that the Anguilla Library Computer Club welcomes visitors. Recent guests included John Radford who dropped by to see what we were up to and Dick Peltier who brought a 33.6 modem as a gift and helped us get our one Pentium system back in operating order. We are located in the National Trust building (which is between the new Primary Health building and the Library, across from Ronald Webster park). Look for our new blue-on-white "Computer Club" sign. Meetings are Mondays at 4PM for adults (EC$2 if you want a lesson) and Thursdays at 3:30 for children (EC$1). Meetings are informal--drop in for a few minutes or as long as you want. And bring your children on Thursdays.
If you want to bring something to help out, we can always use diskettes and surge suppressors, and we could make computers operational for the children if we had a couple of SVGA monitors or obsolete 386/486 motherboards.
Later this year, we have an opportunity for free shipping from the Toronto area to Anguilla on a Canadian Forces flight. If anyone knows a reliable source of inexpensive 486/P5 PCs in Toronto that would be suitable for building an educational network. please let us know.
First Visual Basic Course in Anguilla. January 1997.
The Anguilla Library Computer Club has just completed a four-day professional Windows training Course: Programming in Visual Basic. The course was taught by Tad Niwinski of Teta Software, Vancouver, Canada, who teaches Visual Basic at British Columbia Institute of Technology. About 20 people attended the course, including volunteers and facilitators of the Computer Club, plus MIS staff from Cable and Wireless, Anglec, Management Resources, Cap Juluca and Malliouhana. The course was held in the Library/Resource Center conference room, with 10 Windows PCs (1 per pair of students) and a PC plus large screen TV for the instructor. Facilities were arranged by Librarian Russel Reid, also a founder of the computer club.

The club has a web page with many pictures of the course.
People who were able to attend all four days and graduated include:
- Danny Laud (Student)
- Johanne Ragbir (Anglec)
- Raul E. Edillo (Club facilitator)
- Charmaine Sasso (Cable and Wireless)
- Bob Green (Robelle)
- Michael Mussington (Cable and Wireless)
- Vince Cate (offshore Information Services)
- Teresa Niwinska (Jet Equipment, Canada)
- Sherri Hughes (Malliouhana Hotel)
- Lisa Richardson (Management Resources)
- Errol James (Student)
- Ruel Phillip (Student)
- LeRoy Hill (Teacher)
- David Christmas (Cable and Wireless)
- Griffin Webster (Robelle)
Tad also gives lectures and seminars on motivation and self-development. Although now a Canadian citizen, he is originally from Poland and has recently published two best-selling books on the subject (in Polish!). Tad also presented a very well received free public seminar at the Library on Friday, Jan 10th: Recipe for Success. You can read more about his optimistic and enthusiastic ideas at his web site, http://www.teta.ai
The Computer Club is back in action after the Christmas Break, still meeting in the backroom of the National Trust building. Classes for adults are Mondays at 4:00 PM and children at 3:30 PM on Thursdays. Visitors welcome. This week the members were experimenting with a digital camera and you can see the results.
Computer Donations Received. December 1996.
The club has been very active. We have some "new" old computers donated by people in Anguilla: Clifton James, Duncan Stott, and Gordon Cillis. Thanks. We continue to meet twice a week, Mondays for adults, Thursdays for children, and have added a new computer lesson every week.
Check out our lesson-plan web site: we focus on practical skills like typing, spreadsheets, and DOS/Windows, with lessons designed to be accomplished in 20-30 minutes. We charge $2EC per lesson, $1EC for children (37 US cents) and have collected enough money to buy our own printer. Now we can do more lessons on word processing, databases, desktop publishing, etc. All of this is a challenge with a mix of antique and new computers.
The club is closed during the Christmas school holidays (Dec 13-Jan 6), but is hosting a Visual Basic programming class on Jan 2nd for club volunteers and those pursuing a career in computers. This will be taught by Tad Niwinski, a professional instructor from Vancouver who volunteered to teach while having a holiday in Anguilla.
Next we need to find someone to teach Java here. Any volunteers? We offer free room and board and $5EC per day spending money.
Club Moves to National Trust Building. October 1996.
The Library Computer Club has moved its computers and meetings into a nearby room of its own offered by the The Anguilla National Trust. This allows the club to give computer lessons to younger children who were too noisy for the main lobby of the public library. The location is across from Ronald Webster Park in the heritage building with purple doors and cute trim (Photo of new club house.)
The Computer Club web site now has a resources page with lesson plans and software tools that you can download. You could use it to start up your own computer club, copying Anguilla's.
If you are visiting Anguilla, please drop in and see the club any Monday or Thursday around 4PM.
Computer Club Grows. September 1996.
The Library Computer Club continues to grow, with 50 to 80 enthusiasts of all ages gathering at our new library Mondays at 4:30 PM. Here is a group of young people listening to Vince Cate explain about memory hierarchy.

We usually have between 5 and 8 computers to work on, not nearly enough for the size of the group, but everyone takes turns. People have donated old computers through the Anguilla Computes! program, which offers a US tax receipt and handles shipping to Anguilla. The Club has fixed up these donated systems and installed software on them. Three of the older systems, including two Laptops, are permanently available to children in the library. The machines have a DOS menu that lets them run math, word, and skill games--if they turn the power off and on, they are back in the same menu. So we even make good use of obsolete 8086/CGA laptops! Thanks to all who have donated.
If you are visiting Anguilla and would like to help or just observe, feel free to drop by the library any Monday between 9:30 AM and 6:00 PM.
Club Has a Web Page. September 1996.
The Anguilla Library Computer Club has a web site! Check out the pictures of our members at work. Here are club facilitator Leroy Hill (left) and student assistant Danny Laud (right) helping young enthusiasts:
Second Meeting. July 1996.
With five PCs set up around the meeting room in the new library, 27 Anguillian computer enthusiasts learned basic Windows skills: Drawing a picture with Paint, writing and enhancing a short message with Write, clicking and double clicking the mouse, dragging the mouse, and Alt-Tab to switch applications. Congratulations to our club members who each accomplished the challenging skill session. Helping the students were Leroy Hill, Roy Tabor, Vince Cate, myself and Keith an exchange student from Manhattan who is working on the heritage project in the library.
Meetings are every Monday at 4:30 at the library, but the next one is August 12 due to Carnival. Future topics include ways to get your own computer, word processing, database, Internet, taking a computer apart and putting it back together, resources in our library for learning about computers, and much more. Anyone with a laptop computer who would like to help is encouraged to show up at about 4:00 for the pre-meeting set up.
First meeting of Anguilla Library Computer Club. July 1996.
The first meeting of the Library Computer Club will be next Monday at 4:30 PM. The purpose and intention of this group is to help develop the computer services within the library and in Anguilla generally. Programme of activities include training sessions on many aspects of computer technology and tips on acquiring personal computers. All computer enthusiastsare invitied to join. Sessions will be held every Monday thereafter at the same time.
If anyone reading this news would like to donate compute equipment, they can do so through the Anguilla Computes connection in the US and get a tax deduction as well.

For more information, visit the club's web site.

Revised: December 04, 1999

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