The Role of Chairman

About the current Chairman

My name is Sarah Gilpin and I am 67 years old.

I am a retired engineer who spent the last years of my career specialising in Quality control and auditing

I first became interested in the QL in 1984, when we bought one to help in our family engineering company. More recently I have used a QL extensively for recording data for family history research.

For many years I attended workshops with my husband (a QUANTA member) where I met Alison Southern. We agreed that we were tired of attending the Annual General Meetings and having no say – and that a second full membership in one family was unnecessary. We proposed to the Committee that as active QL users partnering other QL users we should become Associate members with full voting rights but not to receive a separate magazine. QUANTA subsequently created Associated Membership for partners, spouses and other family members of a full member at a reduced annual subscription of 5GBP.

I was asked to take on the role as Secretary to the Committee in 2007.

In 2009 I was approached by John Mason, then Chairman of QUANTA, to consider the post of Chairman as he would have to step down under the constitution. I agreed to accept nomination for Chairman at the 2009 Annual General meeting and was elected.

Secretary – Alison Southern

About the Current General Secretary

My name is Alison Southern.

Tired of being a “QL widow” I insisted on becoming an Associate Member, once we had persuaded the committee to create this level of Membership. Having been an Associate Member for a few years I was then persuaded to stand for the position of Secretary at the AGM in 2009 and as I was unopposed I was duly elected.

Treasurer & Membership Secretary – John Southern

The Role of 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.

About the Current Treasurer and Membership Secretary.

My name is John Southern.

Reluctant Treasurer. Reluctant Membership Secretary, Reluctant Stand in Editor.
I like playing with the QL and associated emulators. I normally enjoy writing SuberBASIC code but dislike having to write copy for the magazine deadlines. Also write for other retro computers such as Matel Aquarius, Dragon 32, Spectrum, ZX81 and Atari 65XL.

Magazine Editor – John Southern

The Role of Magazine Editor

The Magazine Editor’s role is:-

• To liaise with members and others to acquire copy for the magazine
• To plan and edit the magazine content every other month
• To provide a high resolution monochrome PDF file for the printer
• To produce a low resolution colour PDF eMag version for emailing to members and for posting on the Magazine Archive pages of the website
• To produce any other leaflets etc as required by the Committee

News Editor – Dilwyn Jones

The role of the News Editor

Dilwyn Jones

This new role involves gathering news for publication in the Quanta magazine (working in conjunction with the Magazine Editor) and and on the website, and liaising with traders, authors and other likely sources of news for publication.

After being appointed to the committee, I guess I was then the natural choice for the (then) new post of News Editor, as I had been Editor of QL Today magazine for several years before that, and a QL user since the computer first became available back in 1984.
Dilwyn Jones.

Librarian – David Buckley

The role of the Librarian

The role of Librarian is to look after the group’s Software Library, which has grown from a few disks in the early years to well over a hundred disks nowadays. The library is disk-based, but nowadays also available on a single QXL.WIN format CD and also available for members to download from this website.

In previous years, when the volume of work duplicating and supplying disks coupled with the work of processing library submissions, there was a Head Librarian, Sub-Librarians and a Quality Controller. Nowadays, the Librarian does all the work.

Now that the Software Library is available to download from this website, it is hoped that this will encourage members to make greater use of the programs in the Library without increasing the workload of the Librarian, although members without internet access will of course still be able to order programs from the Library on floppy disks (or CD) from the Librarian as in the past.

The Librarian is currently David Buckley

Helpline – Dilwyn Jones

Quanta operates a Helpline facility for its members. Help requests can be sent to the Helpline email address printed in the magazine, or you can use the contact form if you prefer.

While we do our best to help, we obviously can’t know everything about everything, so sometimes it takes a while to find someone who might have knowledge of what the query is about.

Some queries may be published in the magazine and/or on this website. If you wish to keep the query anonymous, we will of course respect that wish.

The Helpline is currently co-ordinated by Dilwyn Jones

Webmaster – Keith Dunbar

Role of the Web Master

The Web Master takes overall responsibility for the QUANTA website, granting users access to different pages on the site and managing the QUANTA Content Management System (CMS).

If you have any questions, please contact me at webmaster(at)quanta.org.uk

About the Current Webmaster

Keith Dunbar

My name is Keith Dunbar and I was co-opted onto the QUANTA committee in 2009 to help move the website into a CMS (Content Management System), and stood as the Treasurer and Membership Secretary for a year, but now I am responsible for the website.

I was first introduced to the QL back in the late 80′s when my brother bought two (one for me, and one for himself) and quickly learned to program in SuperBASIC. In the early 90′s I went to University and went on to program in C, C++ and a myriad of other languages, but unfortunately drifted away from the QL scene.

A few years ago I met up with John Gilpin at a Scout meeting and rediscovered an interest in the QL though with so many other things happening the QL is no longer my main interest. I have been able to provide assistance with web site configuration, selection of a CMS and help configuring the CMS.

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