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Index of Subjects Hi Chris (and others), Thank-you for your recent note [Sun, 23 Apr 2000 17:20:54 -0300 (ADT)] concerning the new group and organization registration process we are implementing at Chebucto. Contrary to eliminating the IP database we will be undertaking a major overall redesign this Spring and Summer to have our community information more easily accessible to members or general users coming to the Chebucto homepage. Further, although it certainly has proven itself useful, the IP registration process had clearly become cumbersome for a number of capable organizations wanting faster web-hosting support. And more importantly, we need to ensure the office has better accurate records on what is being purchased by the IPs and for how long. In the web-based world we're now in, all of this information was neither easily accessible nor administratively convenient. Thus, the reason to undertaking changes and improving upon what we've been doing in the past. We will contiune to improve upon Chebucto's commitment to support local groups and organizations through linked repositories of information, both at Chebucto and soon to other relevant community-based groups in the HRM. Over the next two months we will be contacting all our IPs to outline our sustainable fee structure and to seek further input from them on ways that we can improve our services to IPs. We've already had IPs approaching us wishing to renew their fees under our new fee structure and we've also had others asking us about providing e-commerce support. Although I appreciate your expressed cautions, nevertheless contrary to your reservations I believe that these changes and improvements will continue to grow our IP base and empower further our pool of CCN Editors to be more proactive in their respective IP areas. If we do not have clear, dynamic and accessible tools to support our IPs and the relevant community information that they provide, we will simply become stagant and we will no longer be able to attract the editorial or technical talent necessary to continue our support. Further, accurate administrative records are critical to Chebucto's financial sustainability. It is not the wish to eliminate the IPDB or the IP training process, but it was nevertheless discussed that if we were to move forward in taking advantage of opportunties (ie; VolNet groups, Small Business support, new CAP site support, etc.) we needed to redesign our systems quickly. New scripting requirements in the IPDB was going to take considerable time and thus because time was indeed of the essence we had to move forward with what I think is a much more efficient and cleaner approach. Contrary to being vacuous, I think this is an intelligent and informed way to proceed. Otherwise, Chebucto Community Net will continue to bleed away more IPs to other services and Chebucto will lose its viablilty and attractiveness to the community-at-large. I don't wish to sound alarmist, but when I arrived on the scene at Chebucto last June, this organization was hemorrhaging, losing far too many members to other services and not communicating our mission very well to the larger community. With the support of the Board and many commtted volunteers, I think we've all begun to address these concerns by focusing on mission critical details and we're now beginning to stablize the patient :) But we've still got a ways to go to ensuring Chebucto remains in good financial health and remains viable on long term. I believe I've made every effort to have information and ideas exchanged within the IP committee and with the Editors regarding all these efforts to improve our support services to IPs. I would assume all the individuals in these groups would do likewise with the respective IPs they've been supporting. However, when I send out an invitation, as I did last week, to have an IP committee and IPE meeting at 6:30pm next Tuesday (May 2nd) to address our homepage redesign requirements, I received only one response. This leads me to wonder what the commitment is to move these efforts ahead. But in any case, the meeting will go forward, for these needs are pressing and we shall all soldier on :) Cheers, Leo ___________________________ Leo J. Deveau Executive Director Chebucto Community Net Halifax, N.S. ___________________________ A community will evolve only when the people control their means of communication. -- Frantz Fanon ___________________________
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