Diocese of Newark
Diocesan Council Technology Committee

Meeting Minutes

March 22, 1997

Present: John Rollins, Steven Boston, Ken Boccino, Ray Anderson, Martha Lewis, Jan Paxton, Dave Jones

The meeting took place at Church of Our Savior, in Secaucus, with donuts and coffee provided by Martha Lewis. A number of members were unable to attend and were missed.

  1. John has been chair for at least 2 years and is no longer on Council. He would like to pass the torch to Steve Boston, who is on Council. Steve has indicated his concern for the work of this committee by his regular attendance and faithful service. He has agreed to serve after today. His new e-mail address is STEVENAB@worldnet.att.net.
  2. Conference offering for the Diocese: The Warden's Conference is only offered in alternate years, so maybe we should do a stand-alone. John just finished participating as a consultant at a similar event for the Diocese of Virginia. Their Diocescan Center holds a series of mini-workshops. The way they did it was to schedule congregations as a "client" for a 3 hour consultant time.
    • Issues - generic cloning, graphics, scans, etc.
    • Feebies: Paintshop Pro, ...
    • Folks would need to bring their stuff..
    • Date: August 16, 1997 and September 20, 1997 Two Saturdays and have scheduling ahead - reservations only. John will write Michael a note and get them listed in the calendar.
    • At a future meeting we will need to plan how to do it. Who has what stuff, who has what skills. ***agenda item for the future***
  3. Teleconferencing - Michael is getting requests from clergy about why we can't do this. We have nothing.

    The diocese has rented space (Holiday Inn) to host several such. Last one was through Stewardship commission, who used County College of Morris. TCI in Oakland will provide. Trinity makes it possible in New York.

    Ken has looked at this. Price for ISDN lines is $40,000 at the bottom. Phone lines that you can dial in to places that are compatable. Satalite dish is even more costly. Need to find out who and what.

    There is a thing called ECTN and they do theirs through satellite downloads and they advertise regularly. TCI would do this as a public service maybe. Trinity Institute is planningto do their next in May including a satalite download - which is probably where the push came from. The contact is on the Web page. Ken gave Steve a list. A guy in the Diocese of Bethlehem, Bill Lewellis, has the information for going into it on a diocesan level. It is possible to do the dish on the new building, but it is big bucks. Steve will call and investigate

  4. Michael's Data Base - Ray Anderson will work with Michael. The diocese lost the data base during the move. Larry did not standardize software to Microsoft Office - Access took too much space. Ray has some of this data base already and so does Ken, so they should be able to help reconstruct it. It is a once-a-year process.

    The question has been raised as to whether or not there is a way to have this go up on our web page? John will arrange it.

    The Yahoo map works and if you can get the coordinate for your location, and you can link to that. You can build it in and imbed it in your page. Maybe Jan can try it on the Cursillo page to see how it works. Ken will check the Internet white pages. It would be neat tto add a map feature to our page.

  5. Survey of Congregations: Communications capabliltities of each congregation. We just did it a year ago, but we probably need to do it again. Ken will investigate - change the format of the survey. We need slightly different information. Perhaps there would be a way to ask congregations who have no connections at all to tell us what they need to get up and running so that we can help them along. We also might want to push the issue of an electronic ccontact person from each congregation. We got about 40% response last year. This year, Ray will do some follow-up.
  6. Children, parents, and the internet: It's a scary world out there. Chat rooms, latchkey kids, etc. Parents are not aware of what to do - guidance, what's there, how to manage... perhaps we can offer some of that information.

    Potential - pamphlet to send to churches, workshop content, Voice article - on web page - as outreach from this committee.

    Who - Ken would like to be involved - will head it up, anyone interested, contact Ken.

  7. Other items:
    • Steven - used equipment - Forrest Drennon is doing something, Paterson has someone doing refurbishing and is receiving stuff? Ask Larry. If anyone is actually doing anything, we should find out and see whether or not we can assist them in any way - donations, skill, etc.
    • Ray - what is the status of Episcopal House and Larry? There are problems with data. This is a concern. We have a member of the staff who is not using this committee. He seems to be avoiding us by not attending the meetings. We had no real involvment with the RFPs even after we got them - and we never saw the results! This is not an appropriate way to work. He is making decisions without input How do we get this concern to council? Larry is operating on the Fire Drill principle. He's providing technical support but not end-user support.
  8. Next meeting: Steve is proposing that we ask for a meeting Third Thursday at Episcopal House and put pressure of place and time.

    Meetings: Thursday, April 17, Episcopal House, 7:30 PM
    Saturday, May 17, Glen Rock, 9:30 AM, Web design
    Thursday, June 19, St. Peter's Morristown, 7:30
    Saturday, August, 16 - Christ Church Web making workshop
    Saturday, September 20 - Christ Church Web making workshop
    Meet with the Bishop - Steve, John, Ray during the week.... - John will set up that, Jan contact Michael about the April meeting.
  9. Ray is concerned about priorities - we don't have much visibility with council. We need to take our list to council and tell them and ask for support - and then be able to report back our progress.

    Ray will send us his list of priorities and we can do an e-mail revision, enhancement, etc.

    Establishing standards. As parishes invest in software, they will be loathe to change. We need to publish this...it is the position of the technology committtee that... Ray will include his list of what a basic list of software library would be.

  10. Meeting adjourned
  11. Post meeting chit-chat - HTML Editing sites worth a visit: If you have any questions about the Diocesan Technology Committee or its minutes, contact Jan Paxton.

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