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1. Chairman's report
2. adoption of minutes
3. Treasurer's Report
4. Sub-Committee report
5. notices of motion
6. election of new Committee
7. open forum

Chairman's Report

The Chairman thanked the outgoing committee for their support and help during the year. The committee met on a regular basis at the Royal Dublin Hotel. Six of the members attended regularly and three others less frequently. The Chairman expressed the wish that those accepting nomination to the new Committee would be fully committed to attending the meetings.

Open day:

During the year VICS had a very successful open day held in Kilkenny. It included demonstrations of the internet, Word etc and it was very well attended. It is hoped that something similar will be held in the early Autumn, at a location outside of Dublin.

Infovics:

The VICS tape magazine is going well thanks to Liam Duke and the staff of NCBI. Problems with recording quality have been largely overcome but it would be nice to have more contributors to the tape as well as feedback from listeners.

Mailing list:

The VICS mailing list which is being moderated by Philip Doyle and Ronan McGuirk continues to flourish. The number of subscribers which stood at 50 a year ago, has now risen to 89. Some of these are non-members and the Chairman expressed the wish that they would join VICS and contribute their experience and knowledge to the Organisation. The list provides an opportunity for those who are novices to gain knowledge from those who are more experience. As the saying goes, there is no such thing as a silly question, only silly answers!

training:

In Dublin, Gus and Paula Dorrington are continuing with their good work providing ECDL training in Colaiste Oide. The Chairman also wished to recognise the good work done by Toddy Carey, Mike Meaney and Bob Murphy, in Kerry, Limerick and Sligo, who are attempting to fill the gap in training. There was a need to provide such training for those in the work force and VICS would hope to get involved in this. Some Telephonists in the Civil Service had recently been recertified as Clerical Officers and would require computer training to enable them to carry out alternative duties.

Site Village:

A group from the Committee went to the exhibition held at Queen Alexandra College in Birmingham. The Chairman said the exhibition was probably the best in Europe and the help provided was second to none. Paula and Gus returned with lots of tapes and tutorials which were distributed at the open day.

VICS consultation document:

The Chairman said he would like to recognise the work put in by Philip Doyle, Noreen Meagher, Sabrina McKiernan, Mike Meaney, Paul Traynor and Brian Manning in the production of this report, which would be discussed later in the meeting.

VICS web site:

At the last AGM, it was agreed that the site should be reconstituted and the Chairman said that he would like to thank all those who were involved in this work. The site was now much slicker and had better links which are more appropriate to our needs. The `site address is: http://www.iol.ie/~vics

Eircom telephone directory:

the Chairman said that the downside of our activities during the year was our failure to make any progress in having the Eircom CD made accessible for visually impaired users.

Web site testing:

This is an area where VICS is getting more and more requests from the public and commercial organisations to check sites for accessibility. The Chairman considered that there should be a team of paid testers to do this work. He noted that many public bodies are improving their sites which was a welcome development.

Summing up his report, the Chairman observed that, for the future, VICS has to keep a close watch on things. Developments relating to mobile phones and ATM machines have serious implications for people with a visual impairment. He stressed that we need to protect our rights under the law. People should not be allowed to produce material that the entire population could not access. For example, IBM are at present producing software which is entirely inaccessible. He considered the biggest problem for VICS to be complacency.

Finally, the Chairman delivered an official vote of thanks to the following:

• The outgoing VICS committee
• Eamonn O'Connor for the production of Infovics
• NCBI for the use of the premises
• Liam Duke and the Drumcondra Project
• Owen O'Neill and The Kilkenny Branch of NCBI
• The VICS review sub-committee
• Those who tested web sites
• those who assisted beginners on the mailing list

adoption of minutes

The minutes of the previous Annual General Meeting, which had been circulated via Infovics and the mailing list, were formally adopted.

Treasurer's Report

Liam Duke read the financial report on behalf of the Treasurer, Paula Dorrington, which showed a balance of EUR906.58. C. O'Meadhra pointed out that the books didn't fully reflect monies raised by the Organisation and said that sponsors should receive full recognition from VICS. The Chairman thanked Paula for her work in keeping the accounts, which were adopted.

Sub-Committee report

This arose on foot of a motion from last year's AGM which called for a review to be carried out into how VICS is run and what improvements might be made. The Chairman proposed taking the recommendations section by section with Liam Duke reading. The main recommendation was that VICS should have a constitution and most members felt that this was a good idea, giving the Organisation a more structured approach. Two of the founding members, R. McGuirk and C. O'Meadhra recalled that earlier on VICS had a constitution which was being revised but the process was never completed. As the document could no longer be found, it was felt it would be best to forget about it. C. O'Meadhra Offered to provide a copy of the Institute of Design and Disability constitution which he felt would make a suitable model to follow and this was welcomed. Another recommendation, which called for the establishment of a Munster Branch, proved to be more controversial and a long discussion ensued, with many alternative proposals and counterproposals being put forward. Eventually the matter was decided by a show of hands, with the recommendation being carried by 18 votes to 8. Another recommendation read: "VICS should continue to pressurise FAS to improve access to its courses For visually impaired students, but it has to be recognised that we are a small body with limited clout." The final part of this text was objected to and it was pointed out that VICS was the only European group to have successfully challenged Microsoft. It was agreed to remove this phrase. All of the other recommendations were passed without alteration and the text is appended to the minutes.

notices of motion

The first motion was to raise the annual subscription to EUR10 for ordinary members and EUR5 for students, the unemployed and for retired persons. This was agreed.

The second motion was that all VICS objectives and aims be carried out and implemented by drawing up sub-committees comprising a combination of ordinary and Committee members. This too was agreed.

election of new Committee

The following were elected to the new committee: Michael Lavin, Philip Doyle, Paula and Gus Dorrington, Bert Brown, Noel Redmond and Michael Meaney. Eamonn O'Connor and Paul Traynor were appointed to the Committee as Infovics Editor and Webmaster, respectively.

open forum

J. Bollard reported that while on a recent visit to Los Angeles, he had seen talking ATM machines and wondered if these couldn't be introduced in Irish banks.

R. McGuirk said that the Irish telecommunications industry was now deregulated and under the control of the Office of the Director of telecommunications Regulation. Rather than fighting individual companies, he suggested it would be better to have the licensing regulations amended appropriately, as in future all companies licensed would automatically be bound by them.

Alexis Donnelly reported the National Disability Authority drawing up a set of accessibility guidelines for IT products, including: web sites, public access terminals, ATM machines, desktop software and telecommunications devices. The guidelines are mainly intended for civil servants drawing up requests for tenders.

C. O'Meadhra suggested that the new lobbying Group look through a number of cases and chose a suitable one to fight under the Equal Status Act.

The Chairman thanked the members for their attendance and their contributions to the discussions. The meeting closed at 3.30 PM.