TA for Nonprofits conference call

I just moved from the Community Organizing group to the Technical Assistance (TA) for Nonprofits group because I'm doing web and TA work rather than anything related to fundraising or outreach. I was one of the two note-takers on this month's conference call; my notes are after the jump.

Notes on the TA for Nonprofits (group) conference call

February 2, 2006

• Kevin (in Miami) talked about the January PSO—"The PSO was a lot of fun." It was long, but nice to see people's faces and what they're doing. There were presentations on community wireless, copyright laws, and creating podcasts (others have blogged about the presentations).
• Karl (in San Francisco) is at NTEN, and has been involved in setting up their conference coming up in April (that we have been hashing out the logistics of getting to/staying at). He had been to a regular VISTA PSO when he started his term of service in October. The major benefit to the CTC VISTA Project PSO was meeting people who are working in the similar fields to his.
• Ross is at a community wireless network organization; they build their own open source wireless network meshing software, but most of his recent work has been "creating an organization out of the organization"—forming a board, getting oversite and coordinating participants' actions. He also works with communities, both in the US and internationally, to put up wireless networks. Potential connection: John's organization in Lowell, MA is wanting to put together a wireless network for downtown Lowell.
• Matt from somewhere talked, but there was wicked static on the conference line and especially over everything he said.

Aliya asked us what the most fun thing we've been doing since the last conference call was, or about a major success we've had since then:

• John: setting up a testing/virtual server, with a whole bunch of DNS/web/directory servers. He is becoming a McGuyver addict (putting his physics degree to "work")
• Kamala: hasn't been having fun with her home computer. She has been working with PHP and MySQL. Potential connection: me! I have been doing some work with PHP and MySQL as well.
• Cheryl (in North Carolina): has been working with Plone, but more importantly she successfully planted basil and oregano. Also, there is a mouse in her office. (this kind of mousetrap might work...)
• Tim (in San Francisco) has been working on getting a new version of Social Source Commons out. He hasn't been involved in planning it, but his organization is having a "coding conference" (?) in Oakland at the end of February, that will talk about assisting (or maybe actually assist?) people who want to use technology in advocacy work.
• Laura and Corey (in San Diego?) have been taking a Dreamweaver class, and are starting a Photoshop class next week. They're developing an online system to track how kids are doing in Advanced Placement (AP) courses. They did a demo the other week which worked out "pretty well..." School loans are fixed (congrats!)
• Andrea has been trying for a month or two to get volunteers to teach computer courses. She'll be taking a Dreamweaver class starting next (this) week. She's been taking advantage of the yoga classes that her organization offers the community (hey! my organization should start holding yoga classes!)
• Then I talked; since I'm new to the TA for Nonprofits group, I introduced myself: My term of service started in September. I'm from Maine, but serving in Sacramento, CA at the California Coalition for Rural Housing (CCRH). I've been wrapping up work on a new website (watch that space!). In the past two weeks I've started making phone calls and talking to people who've attended community mapping trainings that the organization (specifically, my supervisor Darryl) holds as part of our CRATE program. I'll be putting together a "rural housing toolbox" from their feedback, and from plans laid out in some grants—it will be a bunch of online resources (both on our website and links to other sites) relevant to affordable housing in rural Californian communities. I've also been working on a database of Inclusionary Housing policies (basically: community requirements that a portion of any new housing be "affordable") from California communities, which will be on our website; I've been writing a Drupal module to make it searchable.

Our next phone call will be Wednesday March 7 at 1:30 PM EST.

Comment from Kamala Kalluri on February 10, 2007 - 2:02pm

Rebecca;

That is a well described notes. Especially to me it complements the parts of conversation I had to miss due to disturbance on line( or whatever).

I tried but failed to locate your e-mail on the 'to' list of addresses on mail sent by Aliya and thought of keeping this note here. I guess most likely we will be discussing PHP and Mysql.

It was nice being able to say hello on the conference call day.