Hello everyone, I had a great time at SHOT in Pittsburgh last weekend, and hope you did too. It was a very important meeting for SIGCIS as we successfully held our first annual one day workshop, sponsored two sessions on the main program, and presented the Computer History Museum book prize (http://www.sigcis.org/?q=node/56) for the first time. Look for separate reports on those activities soon. However I have been getting some messages from people eager to know how what the final tally was from our official lunch meeting. For those of you who have not yet been able to attend one, our annual lunch meetings at the main SHOT conference are a combination of informal mingling, announcements, introductions of new members, presentation of prizes and grants and annual general meeting. SIGCIS has no dues, so we rely on donations made at the lunch and the proceeds from our auction of donated history of computing books to cover our annual operating expenses. We had 53 registered guests for the lunch. They set a new fundraising record for SIGCIS (and I suspect for any SHOT SIG). This was thanks in large part to the energy and enthusiasm of David Anderson as auctioneer and the generosity of MIT Press (in the person of Margurite Avery) in providing a large consignment of books to supplement those carried by our individual members). The auction is great fun, helps make people aware of new titles, and sometimes offers some bargains. The out of print CBI/MIT reprint edition of Wilkes, Wheeler and Gill, which is unavailable via Amazon for any price, sold for just $35! (The only option Amazon does have right now is $400 for the first edition). MONEY RAISED from the 2009 MEETING: We raised a total of $1,117. That handsomely beat our target of $1,000 and was a significant advance over previous years (approx $830 in 2008, $360 in 2007, and $150 in 2006). Of that total about $350 was placed into the money cup as general donations, and the remainder came from the book auction. SHOT matches the first $300 of expenditure by the SIGs, which gives us a total income regular income of $1,417 (not counting capital contributions to the Mahoney Fund). MONEY SPENT for the 2009 MEETING: This year we have spent: . $800 on making four MIT Press/Michael S. Mahoney supplemental travel grants (http://www.sigcis.org/?q=node/55) of $200 each to graduate students and other needy scholars (Stephen Patnode, Evan Koblentz, Christopher McDonald, Hansen Hsu). . $400 on coffee for the SIGCIS workshop (two coffee breaks x 40 people x $5 a person!). . $35 to print the poster we were asked to display at the new "Meet the SIGs" coffee break . $150 (estimate - we didn't get the total yet) to subsidize graduate student registration for the SIGCIS lunch So we spent about $1,385 total. The great thing about being part of SHOT is that we did not have to pay for the meeting rooms or projectors we used for the workshop, or to invest the time needed to handle the logistics for a free standing meeting. So we can accomplish a great deal on a financial base that, while growing, is still negligible. Your money goes further with SIGCIS! SUMMARY: Our income covered the outgoings with a few dollars left to add to the account. So we successfully executed our plans for the workshop, book prize, and travel grants without having to dip into the Mahoney Fund ($2,550 as of September) to support the workshop or use up the surplus ($1,600) we'd saved in our operating account from previous years. As Mr Micawber memorably observed in David Copperfield: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." If you were not able to attend the meeting but would like to ensure the SIG's continuing happiness in years to come, you might consider making an online donation to the Mahoney Fund. http://www.sigcis.org/?q=mahoney. If you were at the meeting then my thanks again for making it another record breaking year. Best wishes, Tom Haigh www.tomandmaria.com/tom