News and events

The speaker was Graeme Carley, a Parliamentary V.I.P. Driver retired after some 40 years.

Judy, our Chairman, welcoming everybody Brian Hosting the proceedings in his usual efficient manner

Larry, Morris, John and Trev swapping stories Judy listening intently to Graeme's gripping tales

Dexter, a prize winner, selects the next number Its a jack-up, Judy won a prize after organizing it all

Our members are fascinated as great stories of the best kept secrets of politicians and royalty in their travels are told

The Queen shaking hands with the drivers A letter of thanks to Graeme from Royalty

Graeme purchased the Crown car when replaced by a new one Brian thanking Graeme for his interesting talk

TelstraClear want to find ways to provide more help to us and to the members of our Learning Centres. To assist with this they have recently appointed an account manager dedicated to SeniorNet, his name is Matt Bourne.

A Federation of Seniornet Societies was established in November 2006 to support the learning activities with resources and funding.

As SeniorNet Warkworth is now part of the larger, new Federation comprised of 101 SeniorNet societies (at last count) you will want to know how it will benefit you. Firstly, there will still be the odd form for you to complete to allow us to obtain continuing access to funding. For most this means a Course Enrolment form and an Evaluation at the end of each workshop or course. Both require very little time to complete. Secondly, the new Federation is now able to negotiate deals on our behalf. For example, if you are an existing TelstraClear customer (or planning to become one) please register your phone account number by calling freephone 0508 011 737 right now, because TelstraClear will pay 3% of your monthly phone/internet bill to the Federation, and they often have some attractive incentives available. More discounts on a variety of other items are offered from time to time. And thirdly; when considering a Microsoft software or Adobe purchase visit www.seniornet.co.nz or click the link on the home page of this website to visit this site and compare the prices with any others you have. You can order direct from the Federation website. Finally, visit www.grownups.co.nz because they are running popular photo competitions for SeniorNet members. Last year 3 of our members made the finals. So please enter and also register your vote on a fine standard of photos taken by fellow members throughout New Zealand. The Federation needs your solid support in order to get good results that will feed back to our own club or to you personally.

Apart from our usual courses and regular monthly Members' Meetings presenting varied special interest subjects, we also have the following:

These are mostly hands-on workshops where you are set tasks and asked to participate in discussion. Keep an eye on this website as there may be alterations in response to demand.

Members have shown increasing enthusiasm for our workshops. You will be pleased to know that we will continue with these in increasing numbers, while presenters are available. Workshops are accessible to all current members as demonstrated by wearing your new name badge when attending, and there is a small charge ($5 per workshop). We ask that you request a place in the usual way as soon as you can because we need to arrange supporting tutors and course material well-before the actual workshop. There is usually a maximum of 16 attendees at each workshop, on a “first come, first served” basis.
There is no shortage of topics but you may want us to cover a subject that has not yet appeared. Please contact Garry (garrya@paradise.net.nz) if you would like us to consider your suggestion.

The programme is outlined below. If you want to know more or confirm your participation please call the Course Management Team on 422 3728. If there is no one in the office your call will be diverted to the rostered Course Manager. There is a charge of $5 for participation in each workshop.

Remember that whilst we can sometimes be flexible, the number of places for some workshops is restricted by the hands-on sessions where everyone will want to participate, so we do need you to tell us you want to come.

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Often our students and members think about the rewards that come from tutoring. And it certainly is rewarding, not in financial terms, but in personal satisfaction that comes with sharing information and experience with your peers, using the structured learning built into our manuals, and you build your own knowledge at the same time.

Our tutors are the backbone of our organisation, and most come up "through the ranks", so you may want to find out more without any engagement, because not everyone makes a good tutor, and there is no point in pressing you into a role that you might not be comfortable with. So come along and see if it has appeal for you. Phone our Course Coordinator, 422 3728 and advise of your intention to participate, or contact me -

We have developed a series of 2-hour workshops to be held on a Monday afternoons at 2.30 p.m. and sometimes on Wednesday mornings at 9.00 am, and the occasional twilight session at 6 pm on a Wednesday.

They will cover a wide variety of topics, directly, or indirectly related to your home PC. We see an increasing convergence of activities surrounding the home computer and we want to introduce to these and to also give an understanding of further features available in the many mainstream programs which we all have. Many of these are not covered in detail in your present course material but an understanding will demonstrate the further uses that can be made of some programs as you become more competent. Our aim is to fill in the gaps and to show the interface between many of the Microsoft (and other) programs. Details of each workshop will be advised to members by email and the numbers able to be accommodated will vary according to the nature of the topic and the use required to be made of the teaching aids. The aim is to have a mixture of class interaction and a lecture with course notes at the end to provide a point of future reference. Tutors and experienced members will be encouraged to lead some discussions. There will be a modest charge to cover course materials.

We get valuable information and advice from other SeniorNets' regular newsletters. Copies are usually available on the table at the Centre. Please read them. Canterbury have given valuable guidance on Backing Up, and now below, from South Canterbury is some valuable advice on forwarding emails that people who have long used computers should really know much better than us – but many obviously don't! So please read the information below, even if you're sure you already follow proper procedures.

10% DO - 90% DO NOT. Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it? I know I do. Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail addresses and names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds. All it takes is for one person on that list to get a virus or Trojan on his or her computer (they may not even know it) and it can send it to every e-mail address that has come across their computer.

1. When you forward an e-mail DELETE all other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). It only takes a second. You MUST click the "Forward" button first or you won't be able to edit the message at all.

2. Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or Cc: fields for adding e-mail addresses. Always use the BCC (blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses. This is the way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail address. If you don't see your BCC: option click on where it says To: and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose BCC and that's it! It's that easy. When you send BCC your message will automatically say Undisclosed Recipients in the "TO" field of the people who receive it.

3. Remove any "FW" in the subject line. You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spellings.

4. Always hit your forward button from the actual email you are reading. Ever get those e-mails that you have to open 10 pages to read the page with the information on. By forwarding the actual page you wish someone to view you stop them from having to open many emails - just to see what you sent. Wish everyone would do this - hate opening all those forwards and finding junk.

5. Have you ever received an email that is a petition? - It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it to 10 or 15 people or your entire address book. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses.

A FACT: The completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein. If you want to support the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient. Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter than a laundry list of names and email addresses on a petition. (Actually if you think about it who is supposed to send the petition in to whatever cause it supports? And don't believe the ones that say that the email is being traced, it just isn't so! I simply won't sign those petitions! Keep getting them, but ignore them.

6. Have you received emails that end with something like "Send this email to 10 people and you'll see

something great run across your screen - or sometimes they will just tease you by saying something really cute will happen. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!! I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either; they get trashed. Many have a great message - just delete the "Send to X friends" Section then send on. Believe me we will thank you for it.

Taking these few easy steps and making them a daily email etiquette practice will help in the overall fight against the never-ending battle. One person won't stop it but if we all do this, just think… It might start to work.