September 9, 2000
Present: Johanna Young,
John Rollins, Jan Paxton,
Russ Worthington, Dave Jones.
Agenda:
Next meeting:
7:30, Wednesday October 18, 2000 at Christ Church, Pompton.
Convention Software: Larry Falkowski has turned over the software and has trained a number of people. He will be back in October to complete the training. The software is installed to a dedicated machine. Russ did the training with Michael. He likes it - he did one of the first electronic ballots. Russ has offered to do the election piece. Larry wrote an interface to FoxPro and someone needs to be able to do what he did on creating the ballots and wall charts, etc. Russ says it doesn't look to him like a big deal. Russ envisions that they will be able to play with the software for a couple of months and then call Larry on the phone if they need a hand in the convention.
Update on 31 Mulberry Street: The DSL line is in and there is a new, larger server. The data successfully migrated. Fiber software is on everyone's workstation. Everyone who needs it has DSL connections. The budget for next year will have $$ in for new machines for those who really need upgrading. Johanna took a PC repair class last spring, so she has been able to add memory chips from unused computers to slow ones. She gave some old computer bits and pieces to a young mother's group. The dumb terminals have gone out to the garbage. Finance is weighing options of upgrading to Shelby 2000 or changing software packages, with the added cost of migrating data.
Oaisis has asked Johanna about the possiblitity of having our own actual web server. To reserve a domain name, the cost is $70 and then about $40 a month for web site hosting and this usually includes e-mail aliases. The administrative cost in personnel for mainitaing a server is really prohibitive at this point from the diocesan point of view.
Training Events for 2000-2001: Johanna is getting calls from folks on basic pc use. Some folks just plain need help on general operating systems and software for parish administrators/clergy. Perhaps a Windows Basic leading into Office. The diocese has some training CD's for Office. Russ wants another Dreamweaver class. Jan wants Fireworks. Electronic Communication using e-mail training. We should have a very short statement on viruses and spend a few moments on the topic at each training. The parish administrators meet monthly at Episcopal House, but these are the full-time folks with enough time in their schedule to take off to go. Perhaps we could ask them, through Michael, what are their needs and suggestions (John will do so).
Report to Diocesan Council ?: A couple of times over the years, someone has made a report to Diocesan Council. We are a committee of the Council. We need to refer this to Steve.
2001 Convention Support: We've got the voting software participation. John would like us to offer the same type of support as we've done in the last several years with the projectors, but do we need more? Dave said he could see with no trouble and he sat about 1/2 way back. We could approach the convention committee and ask them what would be best. John will speak to Michael about the arrangements and see what's what.
We did updates and consultations at our booth. A flyer would be good. Maybe RedConnect would like to come and provide e-mail checking and advertise their. We need one. What would be a part of it would be a topic for next meeting. Russ will bring back a report from the October meeting about what other kind of support will be necessary "in the back room".
Where does the Tech Committee fit in with the Design Team?: This team is the result of Bishop Croneberger's working with a consultant about the future of the diocese. We don't really have an automatic "in". We've accomplished many of the original goals of the Technology Committee. Are we now at the place where we are a part of the Communications operations of the diocese? If the diocese is going to view itself as the "home office" with "branch offices" as each congregation. To facilitate this message, we need to invest in the main office support for the communications across the diocese with standard equipment, training, etc. with a professional support organization.
Budgets: Due 27 October and presented 11 November somewhere.
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