The Hernando Computer Club's mission is helping novices navigate the sometimes baffling complexities of computers.
By ROBERT KING
Published April 17, 2004
Gerry van der Vlis has been involved with computers for so long that he helped install the first commercial computer at Merrill Lynch's New York City office in 1957.
He can fix ailing computers. He can build one from spare parts. And he can teach novices how to navigate their way through the Internet or the finer points of digital photography.
For the past 12 years, van der Vlis has been putting these skills to use with the Hernando Computer Club, a 400-member organization that is dedicated to helping people find their way around in the cyber world.
For most of that time, one of the club's primary functions has been to help computer novices figure out the bulky machine sitting on their desktops.
That, van der Vlis says, is still the case, with the typical newcomer being a 60-something grandparent with few computer skills but who wants to figure out how to send e-mail and download digital pictures of the grandchildren.
But van der Vlis and other computer club members say the interests of club members are expanding. Some members are interested in transferring the tunes from their old 8-track tapes onto compact discs. Others are interested in using the Internet to trace their family tree. And van der Vlis, among others, help people meet those goals.
"I enjoy when people walk away and say they really learned something," said van der Vlis, 68.
The computer club's latest effort to share that knowledge comes at an open house scheduled for 7 pp.m. Monday at the Hernando County Shrine Building, off Sunshine Grove Road.
Vic Symonds, the club's education director, has lined up a historical array of computer hardware from the last few decades. But he is also planning some demonstrations of 21st century technology that will address some timely subjects:
How to handle and manipulate digital photos.
How to buy and sell products on eBay, the online auction house.
Demonstrations of how to navigate Web sites.
There will even be a computer clinic where people can bring in their sick machines for a diagnosis and possible cure.
Symonds, 62, says the club will offer more than 440 hours of training this year to people who pay a $25 club membership fee and then $1 per class, thereafter.
"It starts out with the big button in the front is how you turn it on," he said.
The club has a five-station computer lab at the Shrine Hall and offers lectures in the main banquet room.
"Most of the folks we have, have no experience with computers when we get them. If they have, it's either been very minimal or very bad," Symonds said. Part of the club's task is to help newcomers get rid of their computer anxiety.
"We try to ease that," he said. "There's a tremendous amount of satisfaction in that."
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The Hernando Computer Club's open house will be Monday night from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Hernando County Shrine Club, 13400 Montour St., just off Sunshine Grove Road.
The club's Web site is www.hcc.org Its phone number is 592-0070.
- Robert King covers Spring Hill and can be reached at 848-1432. Send e-mail to rking@sptimes.com
