Update on YES

Well things here have started to calm down. At first everything was completely insane and the stress level was through the roof. My supervisor did some rearranging with the staff and things are now running smoothly..... so far. We've hired a new staff member as well to assist with the Biz Center. Now the clients are getting personal attention and we are hoping this brings in new clients. This will assist with the funds for my organization. Took some convincing but my supervisor listened and at last agreed.

Things accomplished since my last report are:

TechACCESS workshop #1 while it had a small attendance was a great success.
TechACCESS workshop #2 already has more than double the attendance and new people are still registering.
Saving forms to assist my project staff in completing meeting minutes for various meetings and activities. They can just select the form and fill it in and save it with the meeting title so the original form may be used over and over.
Completion and distribution of workshop #1 minutes and other information.
NQTechACCESS Committee has been formed and I am holding the first meeting on Monday July 23rd.
I've obtained several donations from local businesses to use in an effort to raise funds. Also I may have gained a new sponsor for some of our youth programs Biz Venture in particular. My supervisor is speaking with her about the details and working that out.
For the first time ever all the computers in the Cyber Cafe and the Biz Center are fully functional and all have the same programs available.
My program has come to realize the Terms of Use needed to be changed to cover some ongoing issues with users and at last agreed to let me make those changes. They take effect on August 1st. Along with that my program after a review of the bills has agreed to raise the Cyber Cafe fee. We took into account that some may not be able to pay so we have set up a volunteer arrangement for those who just don't have the 2.00 per month (yup just 2.00 mostly we service teens so anything more they might have a hard time with)
Our volunteer work party was a success we had a very good turnout and accomplished a lot of clean up and some repairs.
I have a completed Technology Plan made out that has brought us in well under our technology budget.

Currently I am working on:

Arrangements to do a book fair to benefit my organization through Barnes & Noble booksellers. The people there are even helping me get word out because our town is so small. They're assisting with some mailings. This is an event my organization can repeat year after year if it is a success.
Arranging an event at the bookstore to draw attention to the organization and what we do. I am currently contacting trainers for assistance and therapy animals to see if we can help each other out.
Organizing all of the information for the pending book fair to present to the committee.
Scheduling the next committee meeting. The committee will meet for 2 hours every 2 weeks. So far it consist of 10 members but is growing as I am in contact with other interested parties.
Working with a dealer for software that assist visually impaired computer users to obtain a software program suitable for users who are blind at a cost we can afford. He is hoping to obtain Jaws for us.
Attempting to locate 3 computers that are not ancient and are suitable to be used for our accessibility software. We will make these our accessible computers and reserve them for users with disabilities. (all of our computers are ancient and the processors cannot support some of the applications needed)
Working on obtaining 16 new (never used) computer monitors from the state surplus sales.

It doesn't seem like much sitting here looking this over. I keep wondering what I am forgetting. Anyway things are still hectic and the stress level is high but things are getting done.

Comment from Angela Saylor on July 20, 2007 - 3:06pm

I'd have to disagree with you as it sounds like your doing so much!! You sound as if you really are making progress and accomplishing important activities for your org. It's great that you are being given a good deal of leverage and ability within your org. great job!

Comment from Kevin Palmer on July 23, 2007 - 12:02pm

Good to hear things are running a bit more smoothly now! And yes you are accomplishing a load of work. Could you detail the volunteer work party? How was that organized? Never heard of that before at a tech center but seems like a great idea.

Comment from Rayna Ramirez on July 23, 2007 - 1:39pm

My fellow VISTA Pat arranged the work party and she is happy to tell you about it. She is working on her Field Report now.

Comment from Kelli Williams on August 2, 2007 - 10:39am

The volunteer work party sounds similar to something we do here at the Triangle United Way in the project Teaming for Technology. I know that's a long title. We have a warehouse full of the inventory we receive-anything from computers to mice to you name it-and we have a full time employee that is in charge of refurbishing all of it. Since it is significantly more than a one person job, we hold "hardware parties" that we invite our member organizations, local companies, and random volunteers to. They come spend however much time they have and we give them things to do like cleaning keyboards and mice or loading software. It's fairly low-tech and easy, but it helps us get a lot done in a much shorter amount of time and the voluteers feel good about what they've done. It's a win-win. It's also been pretty easy to get people to come to them, and I am now fielding numerous requests from several organizations and companies to set up their own regular and exclusive dates they can send their employees to. It's a pretty good idea.