Diocese of Newark
Diocesan Council Technology Committee

Meeting Minutes St. Peter's, Morristown
June 19, 1997

Coming Meetings:
August 16, 1997 (Saturday), Workshop, Christ Church, Pompton (directions)
September 20, 1997 (Saturday), Workshop, Christ Church, Pompton
October 16, 1997 (Thursday), 7:30, Episcopal house

Present: Steve Boston, Scott Bennet, John Rollins, Ken Boccino, Larry Falkowski, Louie Crew, Michael Francoviglia, Ray Anderson, Dale Gruner, Johanna Young, Jan Paxton

After reviewing the agenda and adding several items, introductions were made around the table, since several people attended for the first time.

  1. Meeting with John, Steve, Larry and Dale, and the follow-up lunch with Larry, Dale and Steve. The purpose of the meeting was to review the issues of working together -
    • long distance local toll issue - assistance in finding the best provider
    • status of the software - Larry is taking on the project of finding pricing to buy multiuser licesnses
    • equipment In diocese - The Voice has an apple that hates new software (no more room, old machine will not support the new softwares, also) and the related issue for Dale and Johanna, what about compatability for personal stuff?
    • support for technology within the diocese and within the budget that John Zinn will develop
    • satilite dish receiving, Dale found a provider that quoted $150 / session to go to several different sites, which makes it hard to justify purchase when rent is so low. Meanwhile, before the roof on Episcopal House is redone, we need to extend the chase to the roof so that someday we can put a dish on the roof. (The new roof is $90,000)
    • training for diocesan staff and technical support for the staff and equipment when Dale and Michael are not around
  2. The current situation with diocesan software is that it is all licensed to the fileserver. Larry will investigate the upgrade path toward increment licenses toward use by parishes.
    parish connectivity - there was a meeting with a firm from NY looking for beta-test sites for $1 per user. Larry is trying to set up a demo for the system. It looks like a corporate mail drop/website/intranet. Larry will e-mail us about the demo date
  3. Training of diocesan personnel on basic computer skills - Word, WP, etc, and technical support is needed to assist for Larry and Dale on the phone system in case they're out of touch.
  4. We were interested in our own web site within the diocese license and a domain name. There is a 995 router from Sisco(?), but it does not support mail.
  5. A Michael really wants to know about training of staff - there is not enough money to bring in a workshop. The staff has no time to "play around". They need one-on-one work to get them more proficient with Word, WP, Excel, mail merge, formatting, etc. **Ray and Ken have volunteered and will contact Michael to make their arrangements.
  6. Summer input of lay information into a data-base. John had volunteered the work to be done by Christ Church, Michael will come to John the week of the 20th to set things up.
  7. Ken's report - he is still formatting the survey, so we have given him the next meeting as a deadline (August workshop) to show us a prototype.
  8. Goals- Ray - Final review, to present to Diocesan Council Michael will put us on the adgenda for September for follow-up action in October
    *Add to short term goals, training at diocesan headquarters
    *Add to long term goals, provide staffing support for diocesan systems (lan and phone system)

    There should be a nice handout to go with the presentation. Jan will prepare a prototype and bring it to the August workshop. Anyone who can provide any ideas, send them to Jan. Ray will produce the content.

  9. Where is used hardware going?
    --St. Pauls City Serve, Robin Capoor 278-7900, is rebuilding computers and then having the kids use them.
    --Larry has a request from the new Korean congregations and he gets others from time to time
    --Dale has a 386 that needs an I/O card
  10. Workshop Plans: Registrations have come from: Grace Rutherford (Aug),St Lukes (Aug), All Sts Bergenfield (Aug), St Michael's, Wayne, St. Gregory's, Parsippany, Trinity, Kearny, Christ Church, Teanck, St. Pauls Engelwood... 7 congregations total for August and Sept., 5 for August.

    We are full for August. Jan will e-mail a congregation to each mentor for initial contact....

    John and Jan have a Power Point presentation to open the workshop. Jan has the St. Swithin's template that can be used and the HTML Primer, so there are materials for the workshop just about ready to go.

    Make a list of links congregations might want to make and show them how to do it.

    Regina Behrens will volunteer to help with the workshop.

  11. We need an article for The Voice about getting home pages linked to the diocesan page and getting the e-mail directory info to John.
    The URL for the diocesan home page should be put into the masthead of The Voice.
    Scott will write the article - Jan e-mail him with the information. The article is needed to Dale by mid-august.
  12. Should we have our own server and our own names?
    • if you do, you have to have some backup facility, investment!
    • someone to administer it - no staff, high level time committment
    • high volume line
    • big bucks in the budget
    • not now, keep reviving the issue
    • revist digital nation about registering names
    • bucks again
  13. Children's software - All Saints, Bergenfield has grant money to bring software into their pre-school program, but they are looking for help as to what to get.
    Give Ken to do the consultant work with them and he will work on both their page and this issue. Also, Ken can call All Saints, Glen Rock because they have them in their pre-school program. The Learning Company stuff is good.
  14. Accomplishments to date (For report to council):
    • e-mail directory exists on web and hard copy at convention
    • last year's tech fair
    • convention presentce
    • home page for diocese
    • mailing list
    • council minutes
    • presence on Quest
    • all deputies to convention have e-mail
    • committee began with a small # and has expanded to what it is now
    • web page training
    • staff training
    • every parochial report with comparisons on line
    • Louie's convention page is up and interesting - getting lots of hits
    • 20 congregations + Oaisis and Youth Consultation Services have home pages that are linked to the diocesan page
    We should also prepare a new hard copy of the e-mail directory for the Council Meeting presentation.
  15. Next meeting agenda (October):
    • encourage use of multimedia
    • video projector for convention - Diane Kazmarek from Morris Plains

We adjourned at 9PM.

If you have any questions about the Diocesan Technology Committee or its minutes, contact Jan Paxton.

0Return to Technology Committee Home Page