I believe I was the second volunteer at the computer lab when I started there about 5 years ago. At the time the lab consisted of a room with 10 very tired computers with 14-inch monitors that were running Windows 95. There were no printers and there was no Internet connection. In a deal with a local computer store the Senior Center provided the room, the store provided the computers, the store could use the setup for computer classes (which happened very rarely), and the rest of the time anybody could use the computers. And Bruce, the other volunteer, and I somehow ended up teaching computer classes for the senior crowd.
About four years ago Judy from the Irvine Senior Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports the Senior Centers, raised funds for new computers. We got 11 Gateway computers, which were state-of-the-art at the time: 566-MHz Celeron Processors, 64 Megabyte memory, 7 Gigabyte hard disk, and 17-Inch monitors, running Windows 98. And all computers were networked and shared two very good ink-jet printers and one scanner. An Internet connection was promised and we waited and waited.
Enter SeniorSurfers, Inc. It was a corporation, founded by a retired CEO, which was to introduce the senior crowd to the joys of the Internet - and make money in the process. They were to be classes, for which the students were charged a fee, and they were going to be taught by instructors, which were going to be paid. Sounded great - so I signed on as an instructor and recruited two more guys, whom I had met in the Lab. However - SeniorSurfers was a Dot Com, and the corporation was very top-heavy. They had vice-presidents for this and vice-presidents for that who tried to tell the instructors what to teach, but didn't really have the experience to do that. And there were company politics. After a while I got fed up and quit. And shortly thereafter SeniorSurfers went the way of many other Dot-Coms, namely belly-up.
Fortunately, SeniorSurfers had left behind a legacy: a fast DSL connection to the Internet. (They had also replaced Windows 98 with Windows 2000). That made a big difference: while before there were not many visitors to the lab, now many come to read their e-mail, write and print letters, and send greeting cards from Blue Mountain. One of the original instructors still teach classes for which a fee is charged. Some of the classes are continuations of SeniorSurfers' classes, but new classes were developed in which the students do "creative projects", such as writing letters (with MS Word) and adding graphic features, such as frames and clip art.
I am still a volunteer at the lab and can usually be found there on Wednesday mornings, spouting words of wisdom to an audience of eagerly listening seniors. As the most experienced one of the volunteers I ended up in charge of the hardware of the lab. Over the years some minor upgrades were made, and the computers now have 128 MByte of memory. The original inkjet printers died and were replaced by a fast laser printer and a modern inkjet printer. Also, some of the monitors had to be replaced. In summer of 2004 the computers will be four years old, and eventually we will have to find a way to replace them.
I also build a website for the lab, which is hosted on one of the free websites provided to the subscribers of Earthlink, which is my ISP (Internet Service Provider). The Dot-Com had chosen the image of the "Senior Surfer", who surfs the Internet. However, many of our seniors are recent immigrants, unfamiliar with California's surfing culture, and have, therefore, problems understanding this image. So, I came up with the image of the "Senior Mouser" and even invented a logo: a computer mouse with granny glasses. The computer mouse is known in most countries. The website for the Senior Mousers I called - of course - "the Mousehole".
Once a month I present a workshop at the lab, rotating between four different subjects. The website presents information about these workshops, as well as about the classes that are presented regularly. It also has links other websites on many different subjects which might be of interest to seniors.