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> have faced and will fac Hi Blaine! On Thu, 8 Oct 1998, Blaine Murphy wrote: > I have a few suggestions which we should implement to get the word out > there about Chebucto. The more publicity we get the more funds we can earn. > People are still unsure that Chebucto actually is an internet service. I > hear this question quite often, "Once I am on Chebucto, can I get to the > internet?". I hear this as well. Partly I think it stems simply from a lack of knowledge of what 'the Internet', 'the World-Wide Web' and an 'ISP' are. Better education would cleraly help. In fact any public profile of the CCN would help. I don't honestly know how people learn of the CCN these days, other than word of mouth. > Just some suggestions: > > - Have public sessions in libraries more often > - More trainers to help new users in high traffic venues like the library > - An intermediate level manual > - Have information/question and answer programs on community cable > - More printed documentation in the libraries, computer stores, and > internet cafes > - Get the word out that you can advertise your small business on our > homepages (I think we may have lost some potential users due to this) > - A 'membership day' where we can have several people trying to respond > to membership messages which get returned I think these are all good suggestions. They do, however, point to our need for more staff who can organize/administer/implement these kinds of programs. There's lots of work in doing these sorts of things, only some of which we can rely on volunteers for, and even then someone has to organize the volunteers! ;-> > I think the major problems which is stunting our growth are public > awareness of Chebucto, and training. > > If we could get word out about Chebucto, and how to use it, I think we > could generate more funds. > > Joe Baker, who had previously organized a dance etc...has wonderful > contacts, he did mention that he would help organize any dance type > events in the future. I presume the only reason the dance didn't have > the attendence levels that we would have liked is that we didn't > advertise it very well. I don't know that this is necessarily the best sort of event for the CCN to organize either for fundraising or publicity ends, however, there may be other things that we can do that are useful. I'm looking forward to seeing the results of the CCN treasure Hunt, which I think is a very interesting undertaking. > Other technical issues: > > - Instead of cutting off a user with a pending file, lead them to a lynx > page which describe how to renew Good point! > - Get a good terminal emulator (communications program) which we can > distribute to windows 3.11/windows '95 users (hyperterminal is laden with > bugs which make it seem like it's chebucto's fault that things aren't > working properly) Excellent point. One thing we discussed at a CCN-IP meeting was bundling a configurations file for the CCN with telecommunications software sold on computer systems in the metro area, thus making it much easier for users to click and have the software connect to the CCN (much like AOL, Sprint, Genie, etc, do. It would be easy and inexpensive to do and some suggested that (at least a number of) computer stores would welcome such and initiative. It requires only someone to do such a thing ... > Volunteer issues: > > - Utilize more volunteers when we can > > - Have volunteer training workshops for different areas of our service > such as office, technical, communications (such as printing pamphlets) I think we may be able to make more and better advantage of volunteers, however, I think key to our continued success in the future is having more staff time to do the hard (but necessary) ongoing work which volunteers will simply not get done and which you need to pay people to do. I think this would help free the voluteers (board & committeees) from doing so much routine administrative work and allow them to do more useful things. > I hope that my comments aren't too repetitive or simple, I hope we can > garner some use out of them. I think all these ideas contribute to an important discussion on what the CCN should & could do. Cheers! Chris _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._. Christopher Majka <aa051@chebucto.ns.ca> Editor-in-Chief: Chebucto Community Net - Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada URL = http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Home.html "We have ... in this country ... far too many captive editors who cannot even be heard to rattle their chains." -- Carl E. Lindstrom _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.
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