Midlands IBM Retirees Club - February 2023 Newsletter

In this newsletter we have the announcement and booking form for a Fish & Chip Supper on the Gloucester Warwickshire Steam Railway; see below for details.

The March meeting of the Tech Club will be looking into OpenAI and ChatGPT and trying to separate the hype from the truth. See below for more information.

There will be a ramble on Wednesday 29 March; details to follow.

See below for a list of events being planned for 2023; if you have any suggestions for events, please contact the newsletter editor.

Please note that following the formation of the Midlands IBM Retirees Club, the bank account for the IBM Midlands Retirees Club has been closed and a new account has been opened in the name of the new Club. If you have saved the old account information or have it set up as a payee with your bank, please delete those details to avoid making future payments into that account. You will be informed of the new account details when asked to make a payment for any future event.

Some new members may not have received recent newsletters; they can be seen in the Newsletter Archives

Michael Fabianski, Newsletter Editor. E-mail: ibmmidretnews@gmail.com

The following events are planned for the first half of 2023:

E2303RAM: Wednesday 29 MarchRamble with lunch; details to follow.
E2304LUN: Spring lunch
E2306PPL: Thursday 1 JunePete’s Place
E2306CFS: Saturday 24 June GWSR Cheltenham Fryer — Fish and Chip Special; See below.

Photographs from Past Events.

Click on one of the links below to view a selection of photographs from past events.

E2306CFS GWSR Cheltenham Fryer — Fish and Chip Special, Saturday 24 June at 7:00pm Organiser: Paul Gover

The club plans to book some seats on the Gloucester Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWSR) “Cheltenham Fryer” for a Fish and Chip Supper and steam train ride, on what will be almost the longest day of the year.

GWSR The Deva

We will meet at 6:30pm at Toddington station (GL54 5DT) for a 7pm departure. (There is a large free car park.) The train stops at Winchcombe to pick up and distribute the suppers. It then continues to Cheltenham Race Course station for a second stop, where they will distribute ice creams for dessert. Waiter service will be available on the train for soft drinks, beers, wines, teas and coffee. The train finally returns to Toddington, where it will arrive about 9pm.

These are very popular trips, so we need to book early to guarantee places and being seated together. The GWSR require a £15 pp deposit. Assuming we get more than 10 participants, the total price will be £27 per person — a 10% group discount on the individual price of £30 each.

Please note that other purchases on the train must be cash — the railway is in a mobile phone desert, so card payments do not work.

Those who do not eat fish can request Halloumi or sausage alternatives, but only at the time of booking.

For more details, please see their web site: https://www.gwsr.com/events/the-cheltenham-fryer-fish-chip-special-2
or contact the organizer:
Paul Gover by email at pmw.gover@yahoo.co.uk

Please complete the attached booking form and send it to Paul Gover as soon as possible, and by Sunday 12 th March at the latest.

Word document Printable Booking Form

Refer to the document Event Booking Conditions for Terms and Conditions.

Sub-Groups of Retirees Club and Employee Club

Rambling

It is hoped to organise occasional rambles with options so that participants can choose a length of walk to suit them.

Please contact Terry King, terryaking@hotmail.com for more information.

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IBM Retirees Technology Group

There has been a lot of noise recently in the press, the television and the social media, about an artificial intelligence program called ChatGPT. The March Tech club meeting will attempt to put this in context by looking at the underlying technology and showing examples of ChatGPT and other programs at work. You will be better able to make up your mind if it is all hype or if the world will never be the same again.

Date 17 March 2023 11.00
This link should get you in:-
https://rickman.orpheusweb.co.uk/lynx/z/ibmtech.html

The IBM Tech Club meets using the Zoom video conferencing platform at 11.00 on the third Friday of each month. The club is a place where you can talk to IBM folk about matters technical. For example, help or advice on buying or using computers, smart phones,touch pads; engineering, electronics, wifi, bluetooth, cryptography, bitcoin, using computers to making movies, songs or musical works, best software, streaming, the internet, photography, diy, and anything else about the modern world you would like to understand better.

Apart from the technical discussion we try to have a talk by a club member at each meeting. This depends very much on members volunteering to prepare and show something they are interested in.

At 11 o’clock on the day of the meeting click on the link below. It should take you straight into the meeting.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88338135221?pwd=eFYyUTdKZjRUSlR4V0RqZmFYMmlCQT09

If you need help with Zoom contact John Rickman (rickman@argonet.co.uk) in good time before the meeting.