Treasurer & Membership Secretary

As in most small and medium sized clubs and associations, the title of these jobs speak for themselves.

The Treasurer's role is:-

To look after all aspect of the financial side of the Association.

To maintain such bank accounts as the committee sees fit.

To advise the committee with regard to financial matters such as insurance, investment etc.

To prepare the Annual Income and Expenditure Accounts and Balance Sheet for Audit.

The Membership Secretary's role is:-

To promote membership of the Association and maintain links with individual members.

To respond to any problems and/or queries that members may have.

To maintain membership records in accordance with the Data Protection Acts.

To issue Membership Subscription reminders as required.

My name is John Gilpin.

When I retired from full time employment around the turn of the century, I decided that I ought to find some way of usefully occupying my time. After much discussion, I signed up for some courses at my local College of Further Education - South Trafford. Considering my skills and previous experiences, I opted for courses in "Book-keeping & Accountancy" and "IT Skills".

We (my wife - Sarah, eldest son - George and myself) purchased a QL in the late 1980s and had a second QL given to us by a friend (who opted for the PC route). We used these computers in our Sheet Metal Fabrication business using SuperBASIC and Xchange (Archive, EAsel and Quill). We were able to network the machines to control various aspects of the business. Although we developed moderate QL skills, we had absolutely no PC experience.

During three years at South Trafford College, I qualified as an Accountancy Technician, and was awarded a Professional Developement Award in Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Databases and Power Point Presentations but I failed miserably in Desk Top Publishing!!

After a visit to a QUANTA QL Workshop in Bolton it wasn't long before I became a member (early in the 1990s). In the early 2000s, I was nominated to join the QUANTA Committee and took on the role of Head Librarian (not that there were any sub-librarians at this time, as interest in the QUANTA Software Library had diminished somewhat over recent years). Around this time there was a complete "re-shuffle" of the QUANTA Committee and in an effort to reduce expenditure certain committee posts were combined. On the resignation of the then Membership Secretary (Bill Newell), I took on his post and the posts of Software Editor and Librarian were rolled into one. Later, on the resignation of the Treasurer (John Taylor), I took on the combined role of Treasurer & Membership Secretary - a post I still hold but will have to release at the 2010 AGM to abide by the constitution.