General Information
On The Journal
On Technical Assistance
On the Tuesday Night Clinic
On Membership Renewals
On the TCS
You should not expect to find anyone at the office except as otherwise noted. Please check the listings for "Volunteer Days" at calendar.wap.org. These sessions are scheduled for several times per month to make best use of volunteer time.
Tuesday Night Clinic: 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm Tuesday evenings
Washington Apple Pi follows Montgomery County "weather emergency" guidance for cancellation of events in Maryland and Fairfax County "weather emergency" guidance for cancellation of events in Virginia.
Map to office. (25K)
Washington Apple Pi's monthly General Meeting of its members is usually on the 4th Saturday of each month from 9 am to Noon (check our calendar to make sure). There are exceptions to this, such as November when the General Meetings is held on the 3rd Saturday due to the Thanksgiving Holiday. The General Meetings usually begin with the wildly popular Question and Answer session from 9:00 to 9:30, followed by specific subject or vendor presentations.
The Monthly General Meetings are open to anyone interested in Macintosh computers. Any prospective member may join at a General Meeting at the Office table.
Please check the Pi Web site for the location of the General Meeting, as it can vary.
The Pi's on-line store, http://store.wap.org, has everything you need to know about membership fees, renewals and other such matters.
Please, Please, Please send in your change of address to the office.
If you turn to page 2 or 3 in you Journal and look at under the Postal Information you will notice the following "POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Washington Apple Pi, 12022 Parklawn Drive, Rockville, MD 20852." This means that all your forwarding order did was have the Post Office tear the back cover off your Journal, place a label with your new address on it and send it back to the office. Not only have you not gotten your Journal but the office has had to pay the Post Office 50 cents to have them inform the office of your change of address.
In a word, money. The president's columns over the years have explained just how expensive it is to publish and mail the Journal. The cost of sending a Journal to a member who has not sent in a change of address is $3.00. The office gets anywhere from 15 to 30 change of address notices from the Post Office each time the Journal is mailed. If you do the math, on the low side this is $270 per year and on the high side it is $540 per year. To put it bluntly, the money is not in the budget to send out replacement Journals to members who have not sent in their change of address notices. However, you are welcome to come into the office to get a copy of the latest Journal.
Actually you're in luck. The Hotline is now published exclusively online - log into the TCS and you'll find a link to get you there easily. But to answer your question specifically, our office is staffed only by volunteers these days and they cannot give out Hotline numbers over the phone.
The office is not staffed to answer technical questions. Washington Apple Pi is staffed entirely by volunteers these days and most do not have the time or technical ability to help you. You're welcome to call our Hotline volunteers, post a message on the TCS or come to a Tuesday Night Clinic. Our volunteers can give you the names of local Mac gurus who make housecalls if you need that kind of service.
As mentioned earlier, our office is now staffed entirely by volunteers. They are asked to take messages, help with mailings and other important chores. Please call the Hotline, leave a message on the TCS or come to a Tuesday Night Clinic for additional help.
Shades of gray. While it may not seem like a very technical question to you, that does not mean that your questions is not of a technical nature.
Believe it or not, we do get asked this question. But as mentioned earlier, the office is only staffed by volunteers who can not help you in this manner. The Tuesday Night Crew is full of technical people who will be happy to help you on most any Tuesday night from 7 pm until 9 pm.
No. Reservations are not taken for the Tuesday Night Clinic.
When you arrive on a Tuesday night you will find a form that you must fill out. This form will have a place for you to describe your problem. The Crew uses this form to help decide who on the Crew would be the best person to help you. If you have not filled out a form you will not be helped until you do.
The Clinic is staffed by volunteers. No one is required to call to tell the office whether they will be in on a specific Tuesday night or not. There is a group of people who are usually in on Tuesday nights. However, due to other obligations there can be no 'firm' guarantee that any one of those members will be in on any given Tuesday night. If you have been to the Clinic before and know the name of the person you are hoping will be in, your best course of action is to call or email that person to see if they will be in on the Tuesday night that you are coming.
You do not need to be a member, but we usually ask that you join as part of the donation you make for our repair service. It is worth the cost!
We ask for a donation based on the amount of time our volunteer might spend with you. Ask when you arrive for a fuller explanation. Of course, we appreciate a higher donation than the "suggested donation per hour" since this is a volunteer operation.
Washington Apple Pi does NOT sell the mailing list. A commercial retailer may rent a one time run of the mailing list under specific guidelines. The commercial retailer must first send a copy of the proposed mailing to the office so that the BOD may vote on the appropriateness of the mailing going to the membership. Once the BOD has approved the mailing, the office will contact the retailer to set up the mailing. In most cases the retailer will send the mailing materials to the office for mailing. This was a long explanation to tell you that Washington Apple Pi protects your name and address while still making some money by doing commercial mailings that have been approved by the BOD.
Your home phone number and email are both requirements for access to the TCS. In fact, you will get a free email as part of your membership. Basically, however, we need contact information and a phone number and email are a necessary requirement for membership. Again we won't give out that information to anyone without permission.
Our TCS and Explorer FAQ has all the information you'll need about these services. But I forgot the dial-up number to the TCS.
If you have lost your TCS phone number, or are out of the area and need to dial in, the number is: (301) 984-4070. Also remember that you can now access the TCS via the Internet at tcs.wap.org as well as get your email online as well.
