In 2003, an advertisement in the West Sussex Gazette weekly newspaper advertised a fund for local worthwhile projects from the “Help the Aged's” Citizens' Action Millennium Awards.
An application was made on behalf of three people who had shown an interest in forming a computer club in our village. They were Ron de Gottal, Alma Barker and Frank James. Sadly we changed the day of our weekly meeting from Wednesday to Thursday to suit the majority and Ron had to give up attending as he was fully occupied on Thursday, so John West took his place as an applicant.
The club was helped by the Village Hall governing committee, by the Village Council authority, namely the Secretary and the Chairman. The document was supported by the Chairman of our club, Mr. David Hughes.
We were successful and a total grant of £3,450 was made available and was accepted by the club on 9/10/03. We bought software, computers, a scanner,paid for telephone rental and the rent of the hall.
Frank James was granted a lifetime membership of the Millennium Awards Fellowship!
In August 2004 we made another application for funding to Awards for All. In November 2004 we were awarded £3.983 for a projector, screen, software and replacement monitors.
In February 2006 we submitted another application for funding to Awards for All. Later that year we were awarded £3,500 which was used to purchase computers, software, monitors, a router and wireless adaptors.
We are now able to support ourselves financially, due to the larger number of members.
The original idea was to launch the club with Linux as the operating system, however we had no competent teacher. One of the staff at the local library whispered that there was someone with teaching experience ready and willing to help. This was Paul Knapp, without his help we would have certainly foundered. He has been our rock from which knowledge has been disseminated, he has always been on hand for help in every way.
In recent years we have made use of the annexe to our main hall, whereby sessions are often held simultaneously with the main programme. These sessions include basic computing and specialty subjects such as "What's in the Box" (looking inside your desk top computer), Screen Casting and iPads.
To keep up with the growing popularity of Tablets, and the demand from our members, we held our first iPad session in the Main Hall in May 2018 together with an Android Tablet session in the annexe.
In 2006 Lionel Oddell created the club's website (updated in 2018)
On the 14th September, 2024 we moved the venue of the club from the Conservative Hall, East Preston to The Royal British Legion Club, The Street, East Preston BN16 1JL
We are, and have been, a Registered Charity since 17th November, 2004.
Registered Charity No. 1106827
The committee , as at January 2018, consists of:
Tony Martin (Chairman), Graham Holness (Secretary), Geoff Love (Treasurer), Lionel Oddell, Brian Ramble, Jackie Bush, Our President Emeritus is Frank James.
We are sorry to report that Frank James, our President Emeritus, died in April 2024, aged 100 years.
We have currently close to 80 members