This was just released from our sister group, the Washington Area
Midrange group,
the local iSeries user group for Washington DC and Maryland.
They will be going to quarterly meetings like the Lancaster PA
group chose to do earlier this year.

Our group, the DVCUG, will be suspending monthly meeting during the
summer,
so the June meeting is the last meeting for a while.


http://www.wash-midrange.org
http://www.cpcp.org
http://www.DVCUG.org

In other more local news, the Philly Java User Group will be meeting
at Unisys right off
of Rte 202 next to Penn State Great Valley, since the usual meeting
venue at Villanova
is just getting too hard to schedule.

http://www.phillyjug.org

===================================================

From Don Rima, President of WAM:

I want to thank all those that have come out this week for the
seminars
and that attended this evenings WAM meeting. You didn't realize it
this
evening, but you basically attended the last regularly scheduled WAM
meeting. At least the last meeting as we've been doing WAM meetings
for
the last 15 or more years that I've been involved with the group.

But, WAM is NOT dead.

As you recall, we sent out a plea for information a few weeks ago.
This
was in response to the trends that we were seeing forming in the
AS400
marketplace in the midatlantic region, North America, and the the
rest of
the western world. In short the things many of you verified to us
were
that the AS400 wasn't your primary system of interest or
development; some
of you were in the process of leaving the platform - most noteably
for
unix/oracle and Microsoft; many didn't have the time for monthly
meetings;
some didn't like the venu. And many of you have already left the
platform, shrinking the pool of people in this area that are, like
me,
OS/400 biggots and fans.

To those of you that think that IBM is abandoning the platform in
exchange
for transitioning to a services company, I can see your points clear
as
day.

To those of you that reminded me that there's little to no
educational
presence for iSeries, ergo nobody coming out of the major schools
appreciating it and bringing those appreciations to the corporate
world
and also the buying and employing market, I can't disagree with any
of
your arguments.

One even wondered if IBM was really interested in growing this
product
line or just sitting, complacent to manage its decline down the OS/2
pathways.

Several of you were out of work and finding that there wasn't much
demand
for AS400 RPG programmers out there. I feel and share your pain.

Clearly, the marketplace for iSeries is in a serious world of hurt,
and
it's reflected in your time priorities, educational priorities,
interest
and needs from your AS400/iSeries/i5 User Group.

On the other hand, I'm very much reassured that for the most part,
the
board of WAM is on the right track in what we're offering. We had
alot of
comments to reassure us that what we were offering was the right
stuff,
that the seminars were there the right stuff, that the speakers were
the
high calibre folks that we had thought they were and that you did
appreciate very much what we as a board were doing for our
membership.
Frankly, that make us feel really good. In fact, there were no
comments
at all negatively commenting on what was being offered at the
meetings or
at the seminars. In fact, we were incouraged to continue them. And we
shall.

As I mentioned in my previous email epistle, attendance numbers are
way
down. And we think we understand most of the reasons why. We believe
that what we're offering, at the frequency we're offering it, is
saturating your time and interest and needs. In short, we're meeting
too
frequently and offering too much for the membership base as a whole
or
even as a statistically significant number, to be able to appreciate
and
attend WAM.

So, here's what we're going to do: We will be going to a quarterly
meeting format plus the JAM. The JAM will continue is
November/December
meeting timeframe and venu. We will have a daily seminar and evening
meeting that will meet on a quarterly basis. We will not be meeting
on
the monthly or every other month basis as we have for the past 15+
years.
We just can't continue to have major industry names scheduled to
speak and
only a handful of people come to the meeting.

In addition, we will be having very infrequent special meetings. Most
noteably for things like OS/400 release announcements. Historically,
our
announcement meetings have been in very high demand and very well
attended.

The seminars WILL CONTINUE to be offered in Richmond and
Philadelphia.
They will also come inline with the quarterly format. The historical
seminar circuit of Monday in Richmond, Tuesday in College Park,
Tuesday
evening WAM meeting, Thursday seminar in Ft. Washington is not going
to
change. We're just going to move it to a quarterly format, vs
monthly/semi-monthly.

In addition, you're going to hearing about events happening in
Charlotte.
This past May 17th was thier last meeting, period. The Charlotte, NC,
User Group has closed down. Basically for the same reasons I've
already
gone into. We are in final arrangements with the Charlotte board to
extent our quarterly seminar offerings to them, adding them to the
circuit. Details will follow soon, but the WAM board felt that there
was
a periodical need down there and that with the adjustments we were
going
to make anyway, that we could fit them in as well. They will be
welcomed at the JAM as we do any affiliated
user group member.

We readily recognize that many of you can't goto a COMMON or simular
conference. And the WAM board is committed to continuing to offer the
best quality and price we can to you, for as long as we have the
resources
to do so, and as long as you demonstrate interest and demand for it.

This Thursday is the Seminar with Jon Paris up in Ft, Washington.
There
is no change in that meeting. It will happen on schedule. I sat in on
the seminar in College Park today and I know that those attending
are in
for a fun and full day with Sir Jon.

JAM is scheduled for November 4th at the University of Maryland's
Conference Center. We're currently finalizing the speakers, topics,
keynotes and door prizes.

The next WAM event series will be in the 3rd quarter, this fall.

We will do everything possible to keep the meeting dates as far from
normal schedule conflicts as we can, and to give you a 6 week
scheduling
heads up so that you can put the events on your calendar to be there.

This is what we're committed to try for the next couple of years. If
the
market for AS400/iSeries/i5(...) rebounds, then we'll rebound with
it. If
it declines, then so will we.

We continue in our committment to our user membership and the fine
folks
at IBM in Rochester, Toronto, RTP and other venus, that have for so
long
continued to develop and build what we have come to know as a
superior system.
And we share your concerns that the IBM'ers in Somers and Armonk
would come to
appreciate and promote it as we do.

We wish you all a great Summer vacation, and look forward to seeing
you
again at WAM in September.

D.Rima, President
WAM