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Index of Subjects On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Susan Newhook wrote: > e.g., *Everyone* who has shown up for Commnxns Committee meetings > --admittedly rare of late--is on at least ONE other committee, which > means, for one thing that they have no more than 1/2 as much time for each > committee as they would if they were only on one. > What can we ALL do about this? > > (write answers here) A functioning and active Volunteer Committee would be a help here but I think that the problems are deeper than that. CCN is a closed community and it is very hard, in fact virtually impossible to break in. Current community members are actively hostile to innovation and this should be addressed. There is no reinforcement for doing good deeds - a volunteer who does something doesn't get any back-patting for a good job (and I'm not talking myself here, I have a thick skin and a stubborn streak, but other volunteers I've seen show up, stay for a couple of weeks and bugger off). The pace of change here is glacially slow so a volunteer can gain no sense of 'making a difference' or seeing which bricks they have added to the wall. It is also part of the larger picture in society where people have less time and inclination for volunteer work. It is conceivable (I will even hazard the word 'likely') that in the not-far-distant future, CCN will have to pay for work or lose some current services. > The communications committee shouldn't decide things in a vacuum. > Example, just to stir up the pot: We don't offer "free" internet access > any more than a pay-what-you-can matinee is "free" theatre and I don't > think we should put it that way--one, it cheapens what we do, two, it's a > lie, and three, it's counterproductive: it plays to people's assumption > that it *is* a lie, that there's always a catch with "free", and they > ignore the whole message. > Our text-only access is worth little to the uninitiated who are dazzled by sound and graphics. We can be faster than a graphic browser for delivering information, but we are not emphasizing this and it is one of the few benefits of our current Lynx. About the 'free' business, in my personal experience with signing up some nine people, three have paid memberships in CCN, two of them after 'sampling' our service first. Most were not interested at first in the apparently 'inferior' service if it were to cost them anything. Perhaps we plug memberships more strongly/send targeted emails to users who have paid nothing? The trouble with that though is that it can appear to be hassling people who can least afford us (one of our raisons d'etre). > That done, how do we cull those myriad postings for the best gems? > because we can't--and shouldn't--pull out all the stops on everything. > (write answe ...oh, you get the point) > Which begs the question of why the ccn-comm list is a closed list, inaccessible to non-committee members. As far as I can see, nothing is being discussed here that is of a confidential nature. I don't seem to have write permission in that directory so I'm assuming you do, Sue. > We can make a directory or a list for the contact-hungry media who are > always looking for fresh voices and faces. > But we can't make it UP. > I'm already there. > I think general press releases are, for our purposes, generally not worth > much. Mark and I could sit down tomorrow and write ten each on the many > worthy and informative programs CCN offers...and we both know where > they'll end up. Cheap graphic access, bilingual software, even awards for > community development sites aren't "news." If they do happen to get in the > paper, we're the only ones who'll notice. > I think that some kind of regular releases are still a good idea if only to remind the news desk flunkie opening the mail that we're still here. We are working from a position of having next to no radar shadow here so any direction leads up. Andrew
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