Communications

Communictions is intended to facilitate interaction within the association and to presnt the association to the larger community. A web site is being planned with eventual phone tree for those without e mail. Contact Stephan or Krista for more info.

These are notes from a recent meeting.

At the February 15th meeting of the Communications group a lot was accomplished. During Summit II we decided to develop a basic agenda for the group and plan an initial meeting. Theresa, Than, Elta, Krista, Hanna, Bill a new addition to the network, Wyatt the keeper of “the box” at Theresa and Than’s, Leah and Stephan attended.

It quickly became apparent that the group wanted to focus on creating a web site as a medium to post information for people already in the group and those who were not involved, at least not yet. As a part of that web site there was a lot of discussion about developing a listserv for group members to discuss items of interest to the group, post meeting notes and dates, ask questions and fill the communications gap between gatherings. Security was a very constant concern amongst those involved. People were concerned about posting addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail address to either the listserv or the web page itself. To handle this the group decided upon having an address suppressed listserv similar to the one for the permaculture guild, not post personal information on the web site unless specifically granted permission to do so by the individual, and possibly creating a members only password protected portion of the website where personal information could be provided in a safe manner.

With this in mind we worked with the 3 choices that had been put forward for a group name to search for possible domain names. Krista is preparing a letter for everyone to provide input on a domain name and whether each individual would like to be a part of the listserv. The group felt it important to move quickly to keep momentum going and move towards the practical aspects we all joined to accomplish. The letters should be out by March 1st, with a request that they are returned by March 15th, so that a decision can be made at a steering meeting on March 30th location undecided, and the website and listserv running by April 15th.

Hannah is organizing a web development team that would include people interested in the developing the content of the site, writing the source code for the site, inputting data, or any combination of the above. This group is interested in having less technically able individuals involved to make sure that the site is as accessible as possible to all members.

We recognized that not all members are internet users or may choose not to use the internet as part of their connection with the group; therefore, we are exploring the development of a phone tree in order to include everyone rather than exclude.

Another meeting for the group has not been set as a whole mostly because the group will be involved in the process of following the steps we set out for ourselves.