IBM RETIREES CLUB (Midlands)
(www.retireesmidclub.org.uk)
Links to Booking Forms by individual events
Click here to see 2004 Diary
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January 2004 Newsletter
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Editorial
Firstly, because it is so imminent, please see the item later in the Newsletter about Mike Cashmore's trip to London. The 'lurgy' seems to be striking all over.
The numbers for the trip to Brussels were reduced from 20+ due to illness and other causes but 12 members and guests thoroughly enjoyed the visit. The new high-speed Eurostar rail link through Kent is very impressive, although we will have to wait another three or four years before Phase 2 through to St. Pancras will be open. Our hotel (Sofitel) is well sited next to a station on the very efficient Brussels Metro which soon got us into the centre and is also right by a good undercover shopping precinct, together with some excellent restaurants just round the corner. Anybody who is visiting Belgium might like to know that travel on the trains within the country is very cheap for the over 65s - for example, four returns to Bruges cost 10 euros! Thanks to John Smith for the organisation.
Illness struck again and so the Christmas lunch attendance was reduced from the original 105 to 97 members and guests who sat down to an excellent lunch. The musical accompaniment was very favourably received by those who could hear it but was not audible at the far end of the room; if we do this again we will make sure the sound is better organised. Thanks to Jean Eysenck - it must have been good as members seemed rather reluctant to leave!
New Year saw 12 members and their guests at the Hotel Penisula in Guernsey. All agreed that this was a most enjoyable way of spending New Year - this was helped in no small measure by the very friendly and efficient staff and several people were so impressed that they said they would do it again. If you would like to go to Guernsey again, then you might like to know that the Peninsula have a Spring Offer which is £36 per person bed and breakfast for a minimum of three nights with dinner on the first night and a free hire car. If anybody is interested, please contact me for further details.
This month, we have the Skittles evening at the Butchers Arms, Mickleton and then in February there is the Lunch with speaker at the Hotel Du Vin in Birmingham. The Hotel Du Vin is highly recommended (our speaker was very enthusiastic) - we have a few places left so please let me have your booking forms as soon as possible. If you need a form, click here.
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There has been some adverse comment about the fairness of the process for booking members on to events, specifically that there is a preference for Committee members, internet connected members and postal members, in that order. This is NOT true and I can assure members that bookings are taken strictly in order of receipt of booking form. The only difficulty is getting synchronisation of the time of putting the latest newsletter on the web site with the time it drops through the letterbox; this should not cause any problem and I can only re-iterate the point in the December 2003 Newsletter that you must get your booking form to the organiser as soon as possible; there should then be no problem. Some events get booked quickly and if a wait-list exists, it needs to be seen as fair; in the case of Ireland, several postal members had booked well before the list closed.
I gave a brief overview of the process in the September 2003 Newsletter but am only too happy to explain any specific aspect.
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Please contact Gordon Jones at gordon_jones@lineone.net or telephone 01455-556192, for all membership changes such as address, telephone number, e-mail address.
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Those of you who take Reader's Digest will have seen this in the October 2003 issue. It is an exercise in the paranormal and can be found at http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/esp.html . Try it and see how you get on.
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Brian Wilson, Editor. Telephone: 01926-777710 e-mail: brian_h_wilson@msn.com
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Trip to London - Friday 16th - 18th January 2004 (organiser - Mike Cashmore 0121 745 9693)
IBM Club Birmingham are running a trip to London this weekend. Unfortunateley, their have been a couple of cancellations due to unforseen circumstances, so if anybody would like to go please contact Mike immediately.
The coach will pick up at IBM Warwick at 15:45 Friday for two nights bed and breakfast at the Tower Thistle Hotel (right by Tower Bridge) , returning Sunday late afternoon. Cost is £75 per head, including insurance.
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Chinese Banquet - Wednesday 17th March 2004 (organiser - Rick Paslawski)
The location for this evening event is the Emperor's Restaurant, Bath Place, Leamington Spa, a well-known high class establishment. We will be offered a Szechuan-style meal, including an aromatic crispy duck course. To accompany the dishes, a selection of spicy aromatic white wines will be offered.
We will start the evening at 7:30 pm with the aim of sitting down at 8 o'clock to what promises to be an interesting opportunity to experience a somewhat diferent style of Chinese cuisine to that normally offered.
Numbers are limited so please complete and return the booking form as soon as possible. Any queries to Rick at 0121-705 7719 or e-mail rickpaslawski@tesco.net
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Annual General Meeting - Thursday 18th March 2004 (Carole Robertson)
The Annual General Meeting of the IBM Retirees Club (Midlands) will take place at 10.30 on Thursday 18th March at IBM Warwick. The Kenilworth Room has been booked and refreshments will be available on arrival. Everyone is welcome and we look forward to seeing as many of our members as possible. So that arrangements can be made for canteen luncheon vouchers please let our Secretary Carole Robertson know if you will need these. Carole can be reached via Email on cal@qrob.fsnet.co.uk or 27 Austcliff Drive Solihull B91 3XT.
The AGM is the annual forum for making your views known to the Committee so don't neglect the opportunity as we DO listen to what you say. There are also two Committee vacancies so if you feel that you would like to contribute to the Club by serving on the Committee, please contact any Committee member who will be only too pleased to tell you what is involved. If you wish to stand you will need to be present at the meeting together with your prosposer and seconder - please tell Carole before the meeting if possible.
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Rambling Weekend - May 28th to 31st May 2004 (Organiser - Gordon Jones 01455-556192)
This year we have a new organisation, Airedale Tours, which is a group travel specialist company and provides for walkers and sight seeing so should suit our group. They will provide the coach and also provided a short list of hotels from which we selected the Ramada Jarvis at Bingley. This is a 'country house' style hotel in it's own grounds. At present I have only one leaflet, I will try to aquire more for distribution or, failing that I will copy the one I have. The terms are half board as usual.
There are lots of things for the non walkers to do in the area and, as in other years, the coach will be organised to drop off the walkers and take the non walkers sight seeing.
We have to have the numbers and therefore the deposits by January 31st, please.
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Eden Project & Lost Gardens of Helligan - 1st to 3rd October 2004 Organiser - Iain Hewitt
There have been several queries from members asking if they can bring second guests. Thanks to members who have booked so far in advance; we do have a few places left so it has been decided that we will restrict bookings to members and first guest until 19th January 2004 when bookings will be welcomed from additional guests and will be allocated on a first come, first served, basis.
The cost per person is expected to be £100-120 (depending on numbers and the amount of subsidy available) for members and first guests to include executive coach travel to and from IBM Warwick, 2 nights half board at the 3 star Cliff Head Hotel, and admission charges to the Eden Project and Lost Gardens of Heligan. The cost for second guests will be £145 per head.
Please fill in and return attached booking form as soon as you can: there are a limited number of single rooms available at no extra charge. Any queries please contact the organiser on 01295-670316 or e-mail to iain.hewitt@tiscali.co.uk
So if you are waitlisted for Ireland, why not come to Cornwall. No Irish Sea to cross - just Dartmoor. No need for foreign currency.
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Printers and Cartridges
The following is a summary of e-mails between members of the IBM Retirees PC Group which may be of interest to other members. Brian Wilson
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Laser Printers for Home Use (Alan Carpenter alancarpenter@blueyonder.co.uk)
Printers for home use come in two main types - inkjet or laser. The printer chosen by most home users is the inkjet, mainly due to price, although the ability to print in colour is a strong selling point.
Laser printers have always been more expensive than inkjet. An inkjet printer can be purchased from about £50.00 to well over £100.00 pounds, whereas a black and white laser started at about £200, with color being £500 or more. In the last year or so laser printers have been dropping in price, and many companies such as Hewlett Packard, Brother and Samsung are selling home laser printers for £100,00, or even less.
One disadvantage of inkjet printers is the running cost. I have a HP PSC750 printer/scanner/copier that was being discontinued that I bought at PC World for about £80.00, but to replace the two ink cartridges (B/W and Colour) costs over £50.00. The running cost of a laser printer is much cheaper. These work on the same principle as a photo copier so have a toner cartridge. The replacement toner can be expensive (£40.00 or more) but they last for thousands of pages.
If you do a lot of black and white printing (letters, documents, reports) then a black and white laser can be a better solution than an inkjet, or maybe you can have both, one for colour the other for B/W.
One laser printer with good reports is the Samsung ML-1210, which sells for about £80.00. The replacement toner is about £59.00. Office World had this printer in their Christmas sale for £50.00 at the Coventry store but they will no doubt have gone by now. Even if you cannot get this printer, there are other models from HP, Samsung, Brother etc. at around £100.00 or less.
The more memory a printer has the better, the one I purchased has 8Mb, but some come with only 1Mb or 2Mb so do look out for that.
Any questions then feel free to ask.
Update from Tom Corkill 05/01/04 Alan's email was very timely; I was looking for such a printer. On Friday I accessed the Office World web site but it was listed at £80, however PC World had it at £50 plus £4 delivery so I ordered one from them. Thanks Alan, good hunting to anyone else.
P.S. Another advantage of laser printers is that their nozzles do not clog up if they are infrequently used. On the other hand some distribute their toner rather freely if handled roughly when being moved resulting in grey sheets when printing starts again.
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Inkjet cartridge refills (Harry Cohen harry_cohen@compuserve.com)
There is a shop in Leamington Spa called Cartridge World, who will clean and refill cartridges for about 50% of the cost of a new one. Their telephone number is 01926 88131. This method is more ergo correct than always buying new ones. I can recommend them.
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More on cartridge refills (Phil Franklin pj_franklin@hotmail.com)
Harry.... thanks for the information about Cartridge World. Their website is
www.cartridgeworld.org/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?page=http://www.cartridgeworld.org/stores/LeamingtonSpa.html .
It's a large franchise and although I haven't got quotes yet for a refill on my cartridges, their prices for new cartridges are very high. Another option is to use the generic Alpha cartridges offered by
www.kc-inks.co.uk/prodinfo.asp?number=ENC6656A&variation=&aitem=2&mitem=2
which are very competitive. A friend gets generic cartridges from MX2 where a black one for his printer is £11.90 for 42ml instead of the 19ml for mine! Go to www.MX2.co.uk .
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Beware of Clones (Alan Carpenter alancarpenter@blueyonder.co.uk)
Some replacement print cartridges do not always work. I bought some cheaper cartridges from Argos but got an error message from the printer to say that it was not a valid replacement.
I think some manufacturers put technology in their printers to check any replacement is a proper manufacturers' cartridge.
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Epson Cartridge For Sale (Tom Corkill TomCorkill@aol.com)
I have 7 genuine Epson S 20193 cartridges (5 colour ) and
also 7 genuine Epson S 20187 cartridges ( black )
Since my Epson Photo 750 packed up and it seemed cheaper to replace it with a special offer Epson Photo 900 from PC World rather than try to have the 750 repaired. How about £5 each cartridge. I bought them from 7dayshop who are currently quoting £11.13 for colour (MX2 £12) and £12.44 for black (MX2 £13.50).
Any offers?
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Barry Thornton
I have received a note from Bill Rome, dated 11th January 2004. (Brian Wilson)
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Please can I ask you to forward this note to members of the IBM Club and the IBM Retirees' Club so that as many people as possible are made aware of this sad news. I have copied several people whose e-mail addresses I have, but am sure this is far from exhaustive. Many thanks.
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"It is with much regret that I have to tell you of the sudden death of Barry Thornton. The cause of death is not definite and a post mortem will be held this coming Tuesday, with funeral arrangements made after that. If you would like to attend the funeral or pass on messages of condolence to his wife Val, please let either Sue Doig or I know - via e-mail in the first instance.
Barry joined IBM in Newcastle before moving to Birmingham and eventually to Warwick where he worked as a Project Manager in the Services business. Please can you forward this message to anyone not on the distribution list who might have known."
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Programme of Events - 2004
The following list is a copy of the master list which is accessed by the link at the head of the Newsletter and is correct at the time of publishing. The master list will be updated as soon as changes occur and these changes will also be noted in the following Newsletter.
22 January Skittles at Butchers Arms Mickleton Brian Wilson
22 February Lunch at Du Vin Hotel & speaker on 'Heraldry' Rick Paslawski/Brian Wilson
17th March Chinese Banquet at Emperor's Leamington Rick Paslawski
18th March AGM at Warwick Carole Robertson
22 - 26 April Ireland - Kerry and Dublin John Smith
28th - 31st May Rambling weekend in Yorkshire Gordon Jones
16th June Summer Luncheon (location to be confirmed) Carole Robertson/John Smith
26th June Upton Jazz Festival with lunch Brian Chilver
18th July Fairford Air Show John Smith/Gordon Jones
22nd July Tatton Park Flower Show Carole Robertson
August 3 Choirs Vineyard plus Brewer, Newent Gloucestershire Rick Paslawski
7th September Upton House [NT] Nr Banbury Iain Hewitt
16th September Blue Coat guided tour of Nottingham Brian Wilson/Brian Hall
1st- 3rd October Eden Project and Lost Gardens of Hellegan Iain Hewitt
18th November Pub Quiz Evening Barry Wiggins
November Dog Racing at Hall Green TBA
15th December Christmas Luncheon Barry Wiggins
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