Hi all and welcome to more strange times. Firstly - a big shoutout to the members. As you know it's been a challenging time, and it was heartening to see so many put their hands up to help and get involved. This includes financially, people offering their time and expertise, and lastly - simply being there and being prepared to put your hands up in the meeting to say that you want to continue. There's a lot to organise on the back end, but we've been reaching out to all the volunteers and aiming to have more news in the next 4 weeks on new activities.

Now of course, no newsletter right now would be complete without mentioning the C-Word. So let's go there...

Many of us now have a well exercised Corona routine - which is about to be challenged as restrictions start winding back and society starts working out what the "new normal is". For some it's been relatively straight forward - IT has "worked from home" longer than most industries, but for others it's brought challenges. Putting aside the health issues - the challenges have included entire industries turned off overnight, a massive rush for toilet paper and "get my organisation working from home yesterday!". Amongst all the change and fear we've seen a rush of people looking to capitalise on that - some illegimate - criminals looking for easier pickings with staff away from the sheltered office nest and communication more difficult for some. There's legitimate opportunity for others - just look at the uptick in daily Teams users for example, NBN utilisation, the number of second hand laptops that were deployed in the last 3 months, and the discovery by Governments that eHealth is actually a thing.

Normally it feels as if IT is changing faster than the real world, dragging it (sometimes reluctantly) along. Now however, the real world is mutating much faster than IT. Work, social networks, shopping, health, logistics, politics, education, globalisation. Everything's in flux - but that doesn't change the basics. We're IT Professionals - we need to make sure that we're keeping users safe, secure. Keeping people and organisations working. Giving good advice - whether to your family and friends, your organisation, your clients, or to general public and Government.

Stay safe all, and let us know what topics you'd like to hear about in the coming issues.