January '97 Volume 1.2

Happy New Year!!!

First of all, BAPS officers liked to extend to you a healthy, a happy and a prosperous New Year as we enter the year 1997. BAPS officers hope to make 1997 a great year for all its members and friends by organizing interesting events and activities for the year. We hope that you participate in our events. We hope you can help organize new events. We liked you to help make BAPS a successful organization in serving its members achieves their individual objectives.

Last Quarter's Activities

About twenty BAPS members and friends showed up for an evening of ice skating at the Fashion Island ice rink. Most of us skated well and helped the beginners with their first experience on the ice. After ice skating some continued on to King's Bowl in Millbrae for bowling. This evening event gave our members and friends the chance to get together for some fun and to become acquainted again.

The one-day Reno trip on November 2 was tremendously successful. Our thanks to the organizational effort of Maymar Lim and all the BAPS officers. For this sold-out trip we rented a Lucky Tour bus to pick up forty-seven people from three pickup locations - Daly City BART station, Oakland BART station, and Rocklin (Sacramento). Everyone was at the pickup locations on time and nobody missed the bus. Everyone enjoyed the trip to Reno. Thanks to Winston Leong for bringing his collection of Star Wars tapes that provided us with an entertainment on the bus. Our thanks to the BAPS officers for organizing the games and providing snacks on the bus. Once in Reno, we went to the casinos of our choice. Some of us competed in and won some prizes (big and small stuffed animals) from the Carnival games in Circus Circus. We signed up a few more members at the end of this trip. Our thanks again to Benny Tan for his contribution to BAPS. Thank you, Benny!

January Activities

BAPS is organizing a ski trip to South Lake Tahoe from January 31 to February 2, 1997. We rented a vacation home for 2 nights near the Heavenly Ski Resort and the casinos. Adults and kids are welcome. We have room for a maximum of 30 people. We plan to leave the Bay Area the evening of Friday, January 31, 1997, at 6 PM sharp. (Pick up locations to be determined). We return the evening of February 2, 1997. The cost of the trip is $45/adult and $22.50/child (ages 12 and under) for lodging. To carpool, there is an additional fee of $50/person. We plan to rent mini vans for the carpool. If you want to drive your own car, you can go there on your own and meet us there, or caravan there together with us. Maps and detail directions provided at the time you purchase the ticket.

We plan to provide snacks at the cabin, but we will eat out for our main meals. We encouraged you to bring food, board games, etc. to share with others. This is a family style outing. These planned and organized events by BAPS provide opportunities for our members to network and to share the common interests. We hope that some of you can help us organize some future events. Please contact one of our officers for your ideas for events.

BAPS Web Site

BAPS now has a Web site. Our thanks to Daniel Maung, Gene Wu, and Keven Hui for putting together this site. The web address is http://www.ece.ucdavis.edu/~wu/BAPS.html If you have access to the web, check out this cool web site!! The BAPS web site includes the description of the bylaws, membership sign up form, and contact names. Included with this site is a list of BAPS activities (events) calendar. We included links to high tech companies and their job postings. For those interested in sites related to Burma, you can find them on our site. We continue to develop this web site so your feedback and suggestion for improvement are welcome and appreciated. Finally, if you know of job openings at your company or know of sites that may be of interest to members, please contact us.

Communications To Members

BAPS currently plan to communicate its activities and announcements to its members by e-mail, phone, web site, and quarterly newsletter. Our primary communication to members for the latest information is through e-mails and phone calls. The web site and the quarterly newsletter are for periodic updates of information.

Volunteers

BAPS is in the process of putting together the events and activities calendar for 1997. We encourage your participation in organizing the events as well as supporting our activities. Currently, BAPS officers organized the events. However, we would like to get our members and friends involved in organizing activities--with the officers. Organizing an event or activity is not as hard as you imagined. If you enjoy a particular activity, we encourage you to put an activity together. We will help you organize it and announce it to our members and friends. You could meet a lot of new people who share your same interests and make new friends. We would also like to organize some technical seminars for this technically oriented group of people. For example, you or a guess speaker can give a talk on a topic or demonstrate a software application program. Another example is to give a seminar on how to use the Power Point or the tools in Microsoft Office Suite. A seminar on setting up the web sites. A seminar on Java programming may also be appropriate. Since our members are from various technical fields, all of us can benefit from the experience and knowledge from other disciplines. Not all seminars need to be technical. For instance, if you or your guest speaker is a business person, the topic may be on how to start and run a business (restaurant, retail, or any business). You may give a talk on your travel experience to an exotic location.

Examples of possible events or activities are:

Angel Island tours (hike or bike)

Ballroom dancing

Basketball social

BBQ (parks/beach)

Biking

Bowling

Camping

Concerts or musicals

Fishing trip

Great America

Guest speakers

Hiking

Ice-skating

Karaoke

Las Vegas trip

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Movie night

Potluck

Reno/Tahoe trip

Restaurant outings

Roller blade

Sailing

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Seminars of general interests

Ski trip

Soccer social

Social technical seminars

Street or art festivals badminton

Table tennis social

Tennis social

Volleyball s

Weekend trips

White water rafting

Yosemite

Sponsor

BAPS is looking for Sponsors. There are three levels of sponsorship.

• The Publications level:

  • we will publish your business or activities listed on your "business card".

• The Sterling level:

  • your donations in the $100 level are welcome.

• The Gold Crown level:

  • your donations of $250 and above is welcome.

Special Thanks

Special thanks to Michael Yin for putting this Newsletter together. Our sincere appreciation to Mr. Benny Tan for his support to BAPS!!!