 |
People Helping People
I've always been active in helping people to help each
other. After all... "People are people through
people." And, as anyone who gets actively involved in
such activities learns, you get back much more that you put
in. Some of my activities over the years have included:
- Spartans Basketball Club
- At the tender age of 17, I took on the job of
secretary of the Spartans Basketball Club in Whyalla,
South Australia. I also played in the A-grade side,
coached the under-16s and C-grade teams and was an active
referee. My younger brother, Kym "Stork" Borrett, played
in the NBA for the Adelaide 36ers and for Australia.
-
- Audio Recording Engineer
- For a year or so I spent most of my weekends and many
evenings in a small 8-track recording studio. Engineering
demo tapes for bands was fun, especially if they could
tune their instruments! But it was simply fabulous to
work with some of the leading session musicians as the
recording engineer and/or producer of many commercial
recordings. I have some tapes stashed away that would
cause severe embarrassment to some of Australia's top
musicians (e.g. Vince Jones).
-
- Magazine Columnist
- Some early Australian PC users may remember me from
the first "Your IBM Computer" column in Your
Computer magazine back in 1983, or later as a
columnist for Today's Computer magazine. I was
also editor and main contributor for the Melbourne PC User
Group magazine PC Update in its early years. I
have also written for a few other prominent publications
from time to time.
-
- PC Connection Australia
- I started Australia's first MS/PC-DOS based Bulletin
Board System in 1984 on an original IBM PC with 256KB of
RAM, a 10MB hard disk drive and a Sendata 300 baud modem.
Over time, PC Connection Australia grew into a
multiuser system supporting 12 lines at 9600 baud and
over 2,500 regular paying users. (For someone who's been
into PC communications for so long, I was a bit late
coming to the Internet and the World Wide Web in
1995.)
-
- Melbourne PC User Group
- Many Victorian's may know me as the founder and
inaugural President of the Melbourne PC User
Group
, the largest such group in the
world. The growth of this group has been amazing. Some 60
people attended the first meeting at Computer Power's
offices in November 1993. About 150 people attended the
second meeting at IBM's offices in February 1994. The
group then moved its meeting to Clunies Ross House where
it was typical to have 400 plus people attend the main
monthly meetings. Today, there are more than 11,000
members.
In May 2000, after a long period of inactivity in
group affairs, I was invited to join the Ethics
subcommittee. The purpose of this subcommittee is to
resolve possible conflict arising from strong
differences of opinion amongst members. Selection
criteria for this subcommittee included that the people
be "of high standing within the group, perceived to
be persons of high integrity, to be wise, level-headed
and impartial." Now that's something to live up to!
-
- Waikerie Gliding Club
- In my twenties I took up gliding (soaring). No,
not hang gliding, but real gliders. My home club was the
Waikerie Gliding Club in South Australia, one of the
world's leading centres for cross country gliding. Over
the years I gained my Silver and Gold badges and a few
Diamonds. The first competition I entered was an
International one and I won it! I haven't flown in a
competition since. Why spoil a perfect record! I soon
concentrated on passenger flying and instructing instead.
It's simply great introducing people to something as
wonderful as the sensations of soaring in a glider.
-
- Glenaroua Rural Fire Brigade
- Now this is a pretty laid back brigade, which none
the less gets the job done. I'm about as active in it as
most members, which isn't saying a lot! But, we all do
our regular rostered duty. My most memorable experience
to date was a day spent burning off fire breaks at the
Puckapunyal Army Base. Care had to be taken not to drive
over any unexploded shells for as the army adviser put
it, "The explosion won't just give your truck a
puncture, it'll wipe out the fire truck and everyone
aboard!"
-
- Victorian Sub-Aqua Group (VSAG)
- In 2006 I joined the Victorian Sub-Aqua Group (VSAG),
one of Australia's oldest non-commercial scuba diving clubs.
I soon established a web site for the club (see www.vsag.org.au)
and joined the committee in 2007.
-
- Bass Strait Aquatic Club (BSAC BSAC)
- In 2007 I helped to co-found the Bass Strait Aquatic Club (BSAC BSAC) as
a branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC).
I served on the committee and established a web site for the club (see www.bsac.org.au).
-
- Victorian Artificial Reef Society (VARS)
- In 2007 I joined the Victorian Artificial Reef Society (VARS)
and soon established a web site for the society (see www.vars.org.au).
Later I created the HMAS Canberra web site to promote temperate water
diving in Victoria, Australia. In 2009 I became a member of the VARS committee.
-
Last modified:
Monday, 01 April 2013
|
|
 |

RECOMMENDED READING
MANAGEMENT

The Witch Doctors
[ Micklethwait & Wooldridge ]
Crown Business
ISBN: 0812928334


The Essential Drucker:
In One Volume
the Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management
[ Peter Drucker ]
HarperBusiness
ISBN: 006093574X


The New Rational Manager
[ Kepner & Tregoe ]
Princeton Research
ISBN: 0936231017


In Search of Excellence:
Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies
[ Thomas Peters ]
Warner Books
ISBN: 0446385077


The Peter Principle
[ Laurence Peter ]
Buccaneer Books
ISBN: 1568491611


The Art of War
[ Sun Tzu ]
Dover Publications
ISBN: 0486425576


The Prince
[ Niccolo Machiavelli ]
Bantam
ISBN: 0553212788

|
|
 |

|