Happy New Year !
Well first things first. Christmas was great! It was a little scary there at first. We actually had no gifts to give to the kids because of the economy thing. Porter Guad usually gives us gifts for the kids at the PINK HOUSE but this year they didn't think they would be able to give our kids anything. I searched everywhere. I wrote request to many different organizations, Everyone turned us down. I was beginning to think that the economy had really done us in as far as there being any Christmas presents at the PINK HOUSE but then Santa came to town. My first resolution is I do believe in Santa. I do..I do. I..do.

Ho-Ho-Ho. Our parents really came through in a big way as well. We had a slammin Christmas party. The food was great. The teen leader at the PINK HOUSE wrote and directed their own Christmas play. The kids all were apart of the program. The parents love it, the staff loved it and the kids had a blast.Well guys here comes resolution number 2. Parent involvement is the backbone of any good program. So keep trying to get more parents involved with the community programs in their community. And before you know it Christmas was over and the New Year has rolled in.

We actually won't open until January 26, 2009. The economy has really been a boomer. It has touched a number of agencies in the Charleston area and it has reared it ugly head for us as well. It only motivates me to be more creative with finding services for our kids. So I have been working on a proposal to send out to the local businesses in the community. I know everyone is feeling the pinch but maybe we will be able to get some kind of in-kind or financial response from the proposal.

Our kids had a Health Rocks presentation to do at the local Boys and Girls Club in the City of Charleston just before Thanksgiving. The Boys and Girls Club program closed the day before we got there due to financial difficulties. I heard that the City of Charleston is trying to help get that program running again but wow it's rough out here! The kids will be doing a Health Rocks presentation at Mary Ford Elementary School for 100 kids. It going to be great! I transport them as well as advise them, but they really don't need my help they are great. The presenter are 5th through 8th graders and they present to kids from the ages of
8-12.
Well wish me luck with the proposal.
Renae Out

Second day back after the holidays, and already so much to do! Since Laura and I are staying on for at least a partial year, we were asked to write up a list of projects we would like to work on. I'm posting the list (there are some CTC VISTA related items on here), any feedback is of course welcomed!

Americorps VISTA Digital Storytelling Project (Laura & Carrie)

Pursue digital storytelling collaboration with CTC VISTA, facilitating workshops for current VISTAs (and potentially alums) in particular geographical areas (specifically Bay Area & East Coast/Boston to start). CTC VISTA Project can use stories on the web for recruitment and/or we can create a DVD for them to use for general outreach.

From CDS: Access to lab for Bay Area workshop, potential plane tickets to Boston (can pursue sponsorship from CTC, Laura will already be in Boston for a weekend late March)

Timeline: Bay Area workshop in mid-February, Boston workshop in early/late March (depending on their schedules).

Digital Storytelling Podcast (Laura lead, Carrie assist)

Monthly podcast on what’s going on in digital storytelling – interviews with community partners, participants, and/or facilitators as well as audio from stories. Not sure if it’s best to host this through CDS, International Day, or Stories for Change. Extensive collaboration between the podcast content and content from the BCM show is possible, but unique content would be developed for each.

From CDS: Story suggestions and staff cooperation.

Timeline: First podcast in early February!

CDS Berkeley Community Media Show (Carrie lead, Laura assist)

Monthly television show to air on BCM channels. Similar to Podcast, but with stronger emphasis on broadcast of digital stories. Will promote CDS events/workshops, themes of Stories for Change site, etc.

From CDS: Story suggestions and staff cooperation.

Timeline: First show in early February!

Other Community-Based Workshops (Carrie & Laura)

Develop projects and community partnerships that CDS wants to pursue but doesn’t have the staff resources to support. Potentially thematic. Possible to do something politically hot (marriage equality) or supporting the International Day (immigration-themed workshops). Also possible to create a larger project in connection with the Americorps digital storytelling project around issues of youth/young adult activism and civic engagement. Potential partner organizations to approach: Girls for a Change, Young People For, San Francisco Urban Service Learning Project, etc.

From CDS: Access to lab

Timeline: March/April and beyond (after Americorps workshop series)

Online Community Outreach (Laura & Carrie)

Manage CDS' presence in new media platforms -- Twitter, Facebook, Change.org, potential public blog (or regularly contributing to the International Day blog), etc.

From CDS: Permission

Timeline: Can start immediately

Local Community Outreach (Laura & Carrie)

Attend and represent CDS at local gatherings and meetings of non-profit media orgs (BAVC, Media Alliance, NAMAC), Community Technology Meet-Ups, etc.

From CDS: Flexible scheduling

Timeline: Can start immediately

Way back in September, I organized an event at Media Bridges for the third-annual One Web Day, which is a cool event that some of your organizations might be interested in participating in.

One Web Day is a sort of “Earth Day for the Internet,” that was celebrated Sept. 22 with virtual and in-person events in cities across the country to promote a free and open internet. The goal is to help people understand the possibilities the internet can offer to them, and motivate people to protect it as a public resource.

“People's lives now are as dependent on the Internet as they are on the basics like roads, energy supplies and running water," One Web Day founder Susan Crawford said in a news release. "We can no longer take that for granted and we must advocate for the Internet politically, and support its vitality personally."

This year's theme was the internet and its effect on democratic participation in an election year. So we planned a panel discussion on the topic of “The Next President, the Internet, and the Disconnected City,” where people in Cincinnati could talk directly to the presidential candidates’ telecommunications policy advisors, via Skype. We invited representatives from the Obama, McCain and Nader campaigns. Since Media Bridges is a non-partisan public access station, I hoped our event could include discussions of more candidates’ positions, but unfortunately the McCain and Nader campaigns could not send representatives.

Our lone panelist was Obama’s telecommunications advisor Gigi Sohn, who phoned in from Washington D.C. and we projected her image onto a projector screen. Our audience was small but enthusiastic, and included some students, cable access producers, bloggers, media activists, a lawyer, and one 11-year old.

Despite the 11-year-old, the event had nothing to do with my job developing the youth media program, but it was a good event planning practice and experience using some of the internet tools. We incorporated the internet in everything we did for the event, which was tedious and scary for me, but my fellow (non-CTC) VISTA Katie did the web work and patiently explained it to me. We downloaded a program that allowed us to record the video and audio from Skype (we had to pay for it but I’d be interested to know if anyone knows of free versions out there), and posted the entire event to a One Web Day page we created using WordPress. The page also has a video from interviews we did with people at the downtown farmer’s market, where we asked people how they used the internet and what they’d like to see the new president do.

Happy new year, from Kentucky. Well, our holiday call in show went very well. It was exciting to be part of such a cool event. We received over 200 calls from across the country from a great variety of people: mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, community activists, members of the religious community, and many others. It was both inspiring and kind of saddening. All these families broken up during the holiday season. All these people who can't see or talk to their loved ones. I mean, this isn't new to me, but hearing 200 calls of it was intense.

Right before Christmas vacation I was interviewed for the local CBS station about the project, which was really cool. They said they'd post the video online, but haven't yet. But here's the write-up from their website: http://www.wkyt.com/news/headlines/36608809.html
My first TV interview! I was thankful for the training I've had in other projects I've worked for to be able to answer the hard questions I was asked about why prisoners deserve to have such programs.

Now in this new year I'm continuing my work on our StoryLine project on our website, adding new calls as they come in on our Skype line and making connections with community poetry leaders to record prisoner poems. I will also aide in our campaign with the Virgin Islands Prison Project to bring the 130 male prisoners who are now housed in Virignia back to the VI. I'll be doing the research and outreach for this next campaign.

I also continue my work facilitating a poetry workshop at the local women's prison. I hope to produce a CD of them reading their work at the end of this workshop. I think that would be a cool addition to the anthology we had decided on producing, and it will make my work in this prison even more focused to the work I do at Appalshop.

We got a grant from Dorris Duke, too, which is really exciting. Some big ones are about to be submitted as well. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Since my last post, we gave a PowerPoint presentation to the representatives from Microsoft foundation. The presentation went well, I had Lou August, the Wilderness technology representative, myself and two other members of Wildtech/CCNV relay information on the workings of our organization. The Word and Excel classes have been suspended until January 19. 2009, but also during this time we have set aside time to give the staff of CCNV necessary office training skills.
I also purchased training books with the funds we raised thru the introductory classes; these books were purchased from Axzo press at www.axzopress.com. These books come in student and instructor’s editions, I purchased the instructors edition which come with software called CertBlaster. I installed the CertBlaster software on all twelve Media Center computers, this program is used to give pre and post assessments of individuals. The assessments are at this time on Word and Excel; in the future I plan to install other of the company’s evaluating programs. The company has a ILT series which deals with Microsoft Office, a CRISP series that deals with Sales, Customer Service, Management and Leadership, Project Management, OSHA, Retailing, Human Resources, Communication, Change Management and more. In addition, they also carry ComTIA press titles that I have interest for future training programs.
Finally, I have been in constant contact with an instructor from the Prince George Community College who is willing to train me and others to be instructors in A+ and Cisco certifications.

Less than a month to go with my life as a VISTA. All I can say is it has been a long and bumpy ride. But worth it in the end.

I'm beginning to switch gears and take on the new roles that will be part of my job description as a "real" employee here at Tincan. I will be continuing to run the history program which if anyone is interested in learning about eastern Washington history take a look at http://history.tincan.org. I'm very proud of the accomplishments that I've contributed to for the history program. Two grants awarded during my service that I assisted in researching and running. Revamping the look of the website. Adding hundreds of artifacts and documents to the archive, building community relationships, and getting the word out about this program.

I wish everyone the best of luck with their service and hope that it is as fulfilling as mine has been.

The past month was probably the most successful for my VISTA project so far. While this was due in no small part to the groundwork of the previous months, over the course of only the last few weeks I trained (trainers and students), recruited volunteers, made new community contacts, and produced media. I credit this productivity with a) working independently and b) communicating frequently about my work to others to involve them and get their feedback.

Mid-November started slowly, as I helped the Shows group (books concerts and events for the IMC) assume their own responsibilities, by helping to draft a new contract with the IMC Finance group, updating their Drupal site and web calendar, and training a volunteer on meeting facilitation, sound, and web/calendar administration. Having that particular group grow to be more independent and capable frees me from a lot of extra, small tasks, and saves the rest of the IMC time and effort, as well. With more time to focus on the broader goals of my assignment, I have been gradually giving closer attention to the Production group that I helped start in the summer. The Production group (site in development) manages the IMC’s media production room, loans equipment to community projects, produces original content, and offers training on multimedia. Along with Production volunteers, Nicole Pion and I started planning an IMC Film Festival for February 6-8, 2009, which will last three days and showcase a variety of genres, especially work by local/regional filmmakers, and will also include art, music, and food from local sponsoring restaurants.

Other accomplishments of the Production group, which now contains a core of six independent journalist/producers, were four new videos (a total of 3.5 hours) that we have shared with Urbana Public Television and which will also be available online at our site and YouTube channel. Coverage ranged from stories about a local activist, IMC concert footage, People’s Potluck Thanksgiving, and a Proposition 8 protest. A group of 3 volunteers filmed performances and interviews at a benefit concert for our radio station. I have also started helping the IMC’s Books to Prisoners program with a video project that they will begin shooting and editing in the New Year to highlight their presence in town, their training, and the prison libraries that they staff.

In the course of recruiting volunteers to produce new media, I did quite a bit of editing myself, especially audio, and it turns out that this is a modest source of extra income for the host organization, which makes it worthwhile. More valuable, however, is the opportunity to instruct others on how to edit. Between Shows, Production, and Books to Prisoners members, I trained three individuals who will now be ready to train others on the basics of production and got them to think about how they can utilize media technology to further their groups’ goals. Over the next few months, I will be compiling my tutorials (and other online sources) for a wiki that our VISTA supervisor Josh King is developing for the IMC (Josh has chosen Twiki, as it has revision control and is used by the global Indymedia network).

There was quite a bit of interest in learning audio recording and editing this past month, with IMC members attending a variety of public lectures, discussions, or wanting to produce their own interviews or radio commentaries. I offered a series of three one-on-one tutorials on recording field audio (using a Zoom H2); compiling a musical set list (ala the quickly arcane term, “mix tape”) for radio; and recording and editing speech for use on radio or film. I chose the free and easy Audacity for the training, and even though I know a lot of people are familiar with how to use it, I’ll attach my quick guide here just in case anyone is interested. There are many more tips and tutorials here.

The final area in which I feel I made great progress was at the IMC’s community radio station, WRFU. First, I revived the station’s Tech group, which had been inactive since before I started as a VISTA. The Tech group maintains studio equipment, updates and repairs software and Internet connectivity, and offers technical guidance for membership training. After a few e-mails about the lack of tech support, a core group of 4-6 of us decided to set up a new computer at the DJ desk, fix and label cables and mixer inputs, and begin a construction plan for more shelves, storage, and a patchbay. In September I had been responsible for training dozens of airshifters, but in the process of bringing back the Tech group, we realized that we were training more trainers (and training ourselves to be better experts and instructors at the station). Two University of Illinois graduate students in the Library Sciences department finished their radio automation and music library training manual, which I had been supervising since the fall. This manual, now available in our office next to the studio, gives DJs and tech support step-by-step instructions on how to add local music, PSAs, and other pre-produced shows to our non-live rotation, how to classify content as clean, and how to edit it if it is not clean. The system is based on ZaraRadio, iTunes, and the Juice podcast player, and the volunteers used Karen’s Directory Printer to generate a station inventory. Nicole and I visited the Library Science department for presentations on their projects and to represent the IMC, and while there we learned about other great community engagement/technology instruction programs that are going on in our town. Earlier this week the librarians even thanked me by having me on their final show of the semester for an interview about my role as a CTC VISTA.

Everyone’s been breathing a collective sigh of relief here at 119 Gallery. On Dec 6 our first annual Jazz Brunch went on without a hitch. I was really impressed to see how many great people came together to give their time and effort to make sure that the event went smoothly. In hindsight, there are a few things that we might be doing differently next year, but it was still a good event. We had 17 people attend. Most of them had never been to the gallery before and it was nice to be able to tell them about what we do here.
So- now I have time to really focus on other things without having to worry about the extra pressure of working on the fundraiser. Starting next week I’m going to start building some focus groups out of our constituents. I’m hoping to find out what types of events and programming we should expand upon so that we can get more people engaged in the gallery.
Other than that, things have been okay. I promised myself I wouldn’t complain about the weather anymore but this situation bears mentioning. My birthday was December 12. The night before, the power went out. Being a recent transplant to New England and all its extremes in weather, the subsequent drop in temperature (our heat went out too) was waaaaaay too much for me to handle.
So I figured I’d just go to bed and the problem would work itself out in the morning. Which, of course, it hadn’t. It took about 30 minutes to force myself to get out from under the blankets that morning. I went to work, assuming that the problem would fix itself by the time I got home. Which, of course, it hadn’t.
It also hadn’t the next day. Or the day after that.
Luckily we had a place to stay about an hour away that was pretty cozy and warm, but the power went out on my birthday. But then- the same thing happened to 350,000 other people in three states that night so I guess I don’t have much of a right to complain. I’m just saying…

Since my most recent report I have done mostly the same thing, coding on the web content management system that is tailored to periodical publication. I wrote the code that sends e-mail to notify subscribers when a new edition comes out. The first client for this tool went public yesterday: Maryland Commons.

However, a few days ago, I took a role in explaining to two new volunteers what's desired of them, which has to do with accounting and business analysis. I received a "thank you" from the director for my write-up on those needs. Several other volunteers offered their services recently, as well. I drove the discussion that resulted in at least a provisional assignment of computers to workers. I got the director to agree to a date to clean up the office so we can seat as many simultaneous workers as possible.

I've started looking into tools and procedures to improve the project management and timekeeping for the organization.