Angela Dawe
Community Communications Facilitator
Community Communications Facilitator
Reports from Port aux Basques
What I Did:
March 7, 2001
Posted to Sharing Our Future web board regarding the fact that I will be on maternity leave during the scheduled face-to-face meeting for facilitators. Searched the internet for and found information on the 3rd World Summit on Media for Children (Thessaloniki, Greece) and the United Nations Special Session on Children. Faxed the information to Bev, Tracy, and Mary in Stephenville.
March 12, 2001
Posted a message to the Sharing Our Future web board to congratulate Mary on the successful community forum she held. I had the opportunity to get further details during the Fisheries Restructuring and Health Determinants Conference on March 9th and 10th. Vanessa Glasgow, Regional Development Officer with Zone 9 and active participant in the forum, was present at the conference and provided further details on the forum.
March 19, 2001
Attended the Marine and Mountain Zone 10 Integrated Work Plan review. Received further information on their proposed work with communications in this area and their plans for developments within the IT sector of this area. Posted a message to fred regarding expatriate e- mail addresses from this area.
March 20, 2001
As per Fredıs request prepared a promotion and dissemination report for Port aux Basques and area.
March 21, 2001
Posted the promotion report to the Sharing Our Future web board. Spoke with Tina McGrath, CAP site coordinator, about a partnership between CAP, SOF, and Community Youth Network for interactive demos during the upcoming Youth Services Fair. She advised that she would be out of town during the fair but we discussed the possibility of Paula Coleman at the Career Information Resource Centre taking on the role and doing the demos at the CAP site in the library. Paula will be out until the 23rd but will be contacted after her return.
March 22, 2001
Contacted the Zone Board with request to have a wireless communications pilot demonstration, in the form of a video conference, at the Youth Services Fair. I was told to contact Jan Peddle at the IT Centre to workout details. Jan was away at a conference so I drafted a letter to send to him, ccıd to the Executive Director of the Zone 10 board, upon his return.
March 23, 2001
Due to poor weather had to cancel the scheduled meeting between myself, Bev, and Mary.
March 30, 2001
Had a teleconference with the staff of Community Youth Network. Discussed the Youth Services Fair and I asked them to spend some time thinking about places we could video conference with during the wireless demo at the Fair.
What worked the best:
What I Did:
February 2001 will be remembered on the Southwest Coast of Newfoundland as the month of the storms. Never again will we doubt the fervent warnings of the weather network! It has been particularly troublesome for those, like myself, who work at St. James Junior High School in Port aux Basques. During a particularly brutal storm on February 5 we lost several thousand square feet of the roof and were unable to enter the building until February 14. The only positive thing that I can say came out of this experience was the familiarity I developed with the local CAP (Community Access Program) and the other areas of internet access in town. For a time during this evacuation I did not have internet access at home so I would frequent these locations in order to check my e-mail and read the web boards. As any e-mail junkie would know it is impossible to go off e-mail cold turkey! :)
By February 14 we were all glad to get back into the office. The day was certainly not a day of rest. On Wednesday, February 14 we had a major tab drive in conjunction with Janeway Day in the Schools. It was a tremendous and overwhelming success with bags and bags of tabs collected. We estimate that we have now collected approximately 70,000 pop tabs along the Southwest Coast alone. That number does not include all the tabs that are being collected in Stephenville and surrounding area and Burgeo/Ramea!
At a proposal writing workshop on February 8 I had the opportunity to briefly speak with the new CAP site coordinator for the area. She was overwhelmed after only a week on the job so I provided her with a thumbnail sketch of Sharing Our Future and we agreed to meet again in the coming weeks.
In the field of IT locally things are overwhelming and exciting all around. Zone 10 is now in the process of creating an IT Centre of Excellence in the Industrial Park. There are currently two employees at the Centre and they are wiring and preparing hardware for the needs of the Centre.From the small amounts of information I can gather it will be a state of the art facility but the extent to which community members and community based groups will play a role in the development is yet to be determined. This initiative is in the very early stages but has great potential as a SOF partner.
Two other initiatives of the Zone 10 regional Economic Development Board are the Career Information Resource Centre (CIRC) and the gatewaytonewfoundland.com web site. After a 4 am brainstorm on February 19 I drafted ideas for a SOF e-newsletter. I arranged to meet with the CIRC coordinator on February 21 to discuss the concept. They have been developing an e-mail database of people who have left Port aux Basques and surrounding area. My idea is to use these e-mail addresses to send out the e-newsletter that will be filled with news about the area, social things of notice (i.e. births and marriages etc.), local employment opportunities and other items of interest to people who once resided here in this area. It would be interactive in the sense that the recipients would send info in (i.e pics of their new baby) and it could be included in the newsletter.
One of the greatest things about the e-newsletter is that it would be free since there would be no mailing involved. Through partnering with the Zone Board, the Career Information Resource Center, and the webmaster of gatewaytonewfoundland.com we could all pull together and reach out to those who have out-migrated.
Right now I have a massive list of e-mail addresses which I will use to poll interest. I will do a mass e-mailout to each and inquire about how they feel about a newsletter of this type and what they foresee as worthwhile items to have in the newsletter. Once the interest is gauged I will write a formal letter to the Zone 10 board asking them to partner. That is where the idea is now. I will update as it unfolds.
February 21 was a very busy day for meetings. I had an early afternoon meeting with the coordinator of the Taking Our Places project which deals with community economic development in rural Newfoundland. The coordinator and I will be organizing a Gender Analysis workshop and she is very interested in using the concepts of community communications, expressed by SOF, as a means of permitting the workshop to reach a larger audience. The tentative date for this workshop is April 20 and I will update later on the plans.
The third meeting on February 21 involved discussion around a series of 3-5 workshops that would be done in partnership with SOF, the Womenĵs Centre, and Community Youth Network for Southwestern Newfoundland. So far the topics include Car Seat Safety by the RCMP, Low Cost/High Nutrition Cooking by the Dietician in partnership with a local grocery store, and several other ideas we are tossing around. The workshops would be taped and used as resource materials for groups in the area. For example, the Systematic Training For Effective Parenting (STEP) program would benefit greatly from such resource materials. It would be a good way to help groups in the area realise the potential of the Sharing Our Future initiative.
On February 23 I learned a very valuable lesson about how fickle technology can be. I was invited to attend a video conference at the hospital. The first problem came moments before the conference was due to start. What at first was believed to be a line of sight problem with the satellite connection turned out to be a failed modem. The video conference was quickly scaled back to a teleconference. Then the teleconference link dropped twice! The positive side of this experience was that I learned as much from troubleshooting the failed technology as if it had worked properly.
What worked the best:
It appears that being visible in the community and building up interagency/intersectorial partnerships in the community is key. I have been very active in the community this month and the connections that are being made are opening doors for future opportunities for SOF. Slowly people are starting to get the picture of SOF and we can then work together to develop partnerships that will further the ambitions of this initiative.
Three Issues in this Community:
1) Lack of awareness of programs and services that exist. This may be due to a feeling of uncomfortableness about approaching the organizations that have the information, a lack of self- esteem on the part of the person seeking help, or a lack of publicity about what is available.
These are some of the issues that will hopefully be addressed by both the Youth Services Fair and the Women's Resource Day.
2) Gambling addictions. The slot machines at several local businesses are experiencing a booming business. There are so many community members who are hooked on them and several have experienced great personal loss due to the addiction.
3) The lack of adequate healthcare for residents of Port aux Basques and surrounding communities. There are long waiting lists for essential services and often patients have to travel out of town, regardless of the weather, for diagnostic or treatment services. The challenge is increasing now as there are plans to close even more beds and services at the local hospital.
January 4, 2001
Travelled to Burnt Islands. Met with Sheila King, with the Recreation Department, and Daphne Croucher with the local Community Cable Channel. Broached the idea of a community communications workshop and brainstormed ideas. They were very interested in the idea and set the ball rolling right away with preparations for local entertainment and venue. Advised them on the format and offered ourselves as a resource during the planning and implementation of the workshop.
January 5, 2001
Busy with the organizing of the Community Youth Network official opening and ribbon cutting for Port aux Basques and area. Contacted the local newspaper representatives and invited them to attend. Contacted local CYN partners in this area and informed them about the ribbon cutting and requested their presence.
January 8, 2001
The official opening and ribbon cutting for Community Youth Network in the Port aux Basques and surrounding area. Had representatives from Health and Community Services Western, the Marine and Mountain Zone Board, the Cormack Trail School Board, Communities in Schools, Community Youth Network coalition members, the Department of Development and Rural Renewal, the Community Education Network, the Youth Registry, and many others. The local media were well represented at the event and I had the chance to elaborate on some of the info I had put into information packets I had prepared for them. The ribbon cutting was a tremendous success and an excellent chance to inform members of the professional public about initiatives being developed in the area.
January 9, 2001
Prepared Thank-you letters for those who attended the opening of Community Youth Network. It was especially important to send a Thank you letter to the media who attended as we have had little success in the past with getting proper coverage for community events. It was hoped that a gesture such as this would endear the media and help with future press coverage. From the events of the later month I can say that it certainly achieved this goal and we now have no complaints about how the press has been covering CYN and SOF information.
January 10, 2001
Back down to Burnt Islands to meet and discuss details with Sheila and Daphne. They have been in contact with the Communities in Schools workers at Grandy's and students have been identified to help. They will determine students for in front of the camera and students more for behind the scenes before the workshop. At this point they had 14 names of students eager to be involved. They also had inquiries from Rose Blanche students who wondered why they could not get involved. It was explained that this was due to the attempt to make the Burnt Islands workshop a purely Burnt Islands forum, with the issues and interests of only the people in that particular community. This interest on the part of Rose Blanche students did, however, open the door for the possibility of having a workshop in Rose Blanche in the future.
January 12, 2001
Travelled to the Codroy Valley for a meeting of the Southwest Coast Coalition To End Violence. The main item on the agenda was the problem of students who do not live near the school being unable to take part in extracurricular activities. The concern was that this was prohibiting them from access to activities which could fulfill their physical, social, and mental needs. I offered the idea of a phone-in forum to gauge youth interest and parental involvement. They opted to go with the data collected by the CIS workers but at least they now have the seed of possibility planted concerning doing a forum of this type in the future.
January 16, 2001
Spoke with Terry Hardy of the Rose Blanche Community Cable Channel. Talked to him about the role a partnership between SOF and Rose Blanche Community Cable could play in the community. Advised him about the Burnt Islands forum that upcoming week and invited him to drop by to see the process, with a view to doing the same in Rose Blanche in the future. He thanked me for the information and we discussed getting together in the near future. I prepared an info package for him just to refresh his memory about SOF.
January 18, 2001
Began negotiation with the local Women's Centre and the mental health worker in the area to organize and tape for later televising a two day workshop for seniors in the area. The hoped for event would be in Feb or March and would centre around demystifying everyday technology, i.e. bank machines and/or automated systems, for seniors. Another strong focus will be senior safety, both at home and from such things as telephone scams. Televising the workshop will permit seniors who have difficulty getting out and about a chance to get the information from their own homes. That is, as soon as Channel 9 Cable is through ironing out the wrinkles from the Rogers Communication take over and can begin to entertain the idea of community playback.
January 19, 2001
In an effort to share information with Communities In Schools and all members of CYN, I posted information about the International Year of the Volunteer Youth Summit and the Janeway Day Pop Tab Drive on February 14 on the CIS and CYN web boards. These web discussion boards are an excellent way to keep in touch and keep the information flowing.
January 20, 2001
Braved the weather and attended the Burnt Islands Community Communication Workshop in Burnt Islands. I was really looking forward to this event because I hoped it would give me a chance to learn how to organize others in the area. The students from Burnt Islands had some great ideas and it was a great day. We had interviews with several senior people in the community, the mayor, the manager of the fish plant, and a panel discussion with elementary and high school students centered around their thoughts on the closure of St. George's Elementary. There was also some great local entertainment by two young musicians. It was indeed a learning experience and it will be great to see the finished product! January 22, 2001
Posted an update on the SOF web discussion board. It is great to be able to hear about what other Community Communications Facilitators are doing in the region and to share ideas that may work in this area. January 23, 2001
Prepared public notices about the Youth Services Fair and the Pop Tab Collecting Inititaive for the local Cable 9 Community Bulletin Board. Spoke with the Editor of the Gulf News about putting information about the Pop Tab collecting in the upcoming paper. January 26, 2001
Downloaded Quicktime and attempted to access internet radio. Had trouble with the installation and the repeated error about connecting to the "Apple Public HTTP Site." Posted a message to seek help with the installation. January 29, 2001
Sent information package to the Gulf News about Sharing Our Future. Arranged to have an interview the next day. Spoke with staff at the local gatewaytonewfoundland.com website and got info about their e-mail database and their e-groups database. Registered SOF with the e-groups database in order to be kept up to date on what is happening inthe area of IT and communications in this area. Spoke with Bev regarding Community Communications Maps in response to mention of them in an e-mail from Fred.
January 30, 2001
Had a telephone interview with the Gulf News regarding Sharing Our Future. Telephoned Sim to chat about SOF and to get information on his March 10 forum and the Buchans project that had been mentioned on the discussion board. Had a great chat and enjoyed sharing information about what we were each doing. Prepared an info package about SOF for the local Taking Our Places - Women in Community Economic Development Research Project. Will be discussing a partnership during a meeting with one of the Taking Our Places coordinators on the 31st of January.
January 31, 2001
Called Bev regarding a picture to accompany the article in the Gulf News this week. Also telephoned Suzanne, CIS worker at Grandy's River Collegiate, about the possibility of her having a picture of the same students that were involved in the Burnt Islands workshop that we could use. Called Sheila King of the Burnt Islands Recreation Committee to see if she or Daphne had any pictures available from the workshop. They did not. Posted a message to Fred about getting a photo from that day. Telephoned Janice at the Gulf News and asked what type of deadline we were on for getting the picture in the paper. She advised that we had until Thursday if it was being sent as a picture but until Friday of it was to be sent as an e-mail attachment in jpeg format. I advised that I would be in touch.
What I would do differently:
The main thing that I would have done differently this month concerns the CYN ribbon cutting. I should have added Sharing Our Future information to the information packages I had for each person in attendance. It would have been a great opportunity to inform a large section of the population in the area about the initiative. I will endeavour to not let opportunities like that slip by in future.
What worked the best:
The experience in Burnt Islands taught me that the best approach to community comunications is to provide the impetus for the event , the guidelines, and act as a resource instead of an organizing force. By providing the information and then letting the community take charge it allowed the workshop to be purely about the interests and opinions of the community instead of what an outsider thinks should be included. If communities are to get the maximum benefit from such workshops it is important that they have the control, with help when needed, of what they include.
Inevitably December brings about a time of reflection. Thus it seems only fitting to use this December report as a time of reflecting on the months between September and December.
I began my time as a Sharing Our Future Community Communications Facilitator in the later days of September. I was immediately excited by the initiative and began to try and orient myself into the new role. I had a background in Information Technology training and was looking forward to using this training to reach the goals laid out by the SOF contract.
It has been quite an experience over the past months. It has become necessary to educate myself as well as others in the hope that as a community communications facilitator I could spur other community members to use existing technologies to reach out to the community, the province, and beyond. I have had meetings with key people in the community, including those working with current technology at the local college, the hospital, and several non-profit organizations. Once the initiative is explained I will follow up by faxing the printed literature that I have on the pilot. There has been great feedback and ideas are slowly taking shape. For example, there has been ongoing dialogue between myself and Development Officers at the local economic development board in an effort to develop a way to include Sharing Our Future in their plans to expand their wireless satellite communications pilot into areas surrounding Port aux Basques. It is exciting to see how partnerships with community members and groups will grow and strengthen to the point where we can begin to think in terms of using technology to reach out to each other and create an atmosphere of inclusiveness.
Not only have I had the opportunity to reach out to local people and groups but I also had the wonderful opportunity to attend a provincial conference. At this conference I was able to meet those working on the provincial CAP initiative which fosters the desire to provide access to the internet and technology for all members of a community. A partnership has already been formed between myself and our local CAP Regional Facilitator and we had lengthy discussions about how SOF and the CAP initiative can work hand in hand to reach out to the community and beyond.
In response to the need to create an inventory of technology that currently exists in my area I have been in touch with several sources of technology and I am slowly receiving data on their equipment and what is available for use to this initiative and community members in general. So far only the Career Information Resource Center and the Marine and Mountain Zone Corporation have responded with their information. The December slowdown has meant waiting longer then expected but I am confident that I will hear from the other locations early in the new year. This will mean compilation of an inventory by January's end.
November 2, 2000 Adult Awareness Day - Stephenville
Had the opportunity to share the concepts of SOF with the adult members of the Community Youth Network (CYN) coalition.
November 16, 2000 Meeting at the Zone 10 office
Bev, Paula Coleman (local CAP site regional facilitator), Scott Dawe (Executive Director of the Marine and Mountain Corporation - Zone 10), and myself met to discuss Sharing Our Future and the partnership opportunities possible between us. We put particular emphasis on the possibilities that the wireless communication project, that Zone 10 and the Hospital are engaged in, would bring to Sharing Our Future.There was also discussion around how Sharing Our Future could link in to the Zone 10 web site, www.gatewaytonewfoundland.com, for things such as links for webcasted SOF activities, etc.
November 21 - 26, 2000 Attended the Regional Faciliators Conference, in Gander, for all provincial CAP (Community Access Program) sites
This was a tremendous opportunity to network with the regional facilitators who will be working on the CAP sites. These sites bring a great deal of technology to communities and their community based approach to access to the internet and other computer resources fits in nicely with the Sharing Our Future mandate to create inclusiveness through the use of existing technology.The CAP facilitators were also given the opportunity to learn about SOF through a display and the word of mouth information sharing of myself and Mary Barter, a fellow SOF facilitator.
November 27, 2000 Met with Lisa Healey-Grandy, Primary Health Enhamcement Coordinator at the Dr. Charles L. LeGrow Hospital
Lisa and I discussed partnering on issues/workshops surrounding youth wellness. After I informed her about CYN and SOF we discussed ways to achieve her mandate of improved community health through the community communications work that SOF is involved with.
November 30, 2000 SOF Community Communications Facilitator Meeting
A great information sharing session with other SOF Community Facilitators. Had a chance to get to know them and inform each other about where we are in our communities with respect to SOF. Had the opportunity to take part in the Zone 9 Community channel AGM and witness the production of Community Television first hand.
October 4, 2000
Had a meeting in Stephenville with Bev, Mary Gaultois, Mary Barter,Tracy Snow, Marg Bachman, and Fred. This was a great brainstorming session where we discussed our roles in the Sharing Our Futures project. This was a wonderful chance to share ideas and learn from ideas of each other. For my local area we talked about working with the coastal communities and their existing Community Cable, the benefits of partnering with the local Zone Board and their wireless, satellite communication pilot, and the possibility of connecting to the local web site in order to offer streaming video of local events on the internet for those who have had to leave the area. In conjunction with CYN we discussed the preparation of a Christmas drama project which the youth would organize and tape for play on the local cable channels. In the p.m. I had a meeting with the local Gateway Status of Women council. They are focussing considerable energies on meeting the needs of seniors in our community. After explaining briefly the SOF project we discussed ways to achieve their goals through community communications. For example, they have identified the need to educate seniors on how to use new banking technology and I mentioned that, with the issue of seniors having difficulty getting out to events, they might better achieve their goals with a taped session aired on local cable. They were very receptive to the idea and we plan to be in touch soon.
October 6, 2000
Met with Jan Peddle at the local Marine and Mountain Zone Board office. Discussed SOF with him and the possibility of partnering with them as they attempt to expand their wireless communication pilot out to the coastal communities. Suggested that we piggyback for travel down to meet with coastal contacts like Terry Hardy. I faxed him some SOF information and followed up. He will be in touch.
October 13, 2000
Attended an all day session with Operation Online at the local hotel. The focus of this session was "IT's Your Business" and there was a good mix of governmental representation, non-profit organizations, and local business people. It was a very informative day that included a video conference with St. John's using the satellite pilot, a panel discussion on how to use the internet and IT to build or expand a business, and sources of funding for business development in the IT sector. I had the opportunity to network and talk often aboput SOF. Prepared a list of e-mail addresses for the SOF staff in order to keep us all in touch. September 14, 2000
The first big meeting of the whole, existing CYN coalition in Stephenville at L.S. Eddy. A phenomenal day of getting to know each other and CYN in general. A fabulous morning session of youth panels where the youth took turns filming and participating. I moderated the discussions and learned a great deal. A wonderful day all around!
September 15, 2000
E-mailed greetings and posted web board message to all CYN participants. Compiled the 2 big question answers for Fred and e-mailed them.Having great interest from CYN members with regard to the web site with their input. Prepared the CYN contact information list to e-mail to everyone.
September 20, 2000
Met with Fred at St. Christopher's Hotel to discuss Sharing Our Futures and my role. Got more info but will still need some time to get my head sufficiently wrapped around the new idea. Discussed the possibility of a e-zine for young writers to get feedback on their writings and stressed the value of using the web discussion board as a key way to keep in touch with everyone throughout Southwestern Newfoundland. The youth that attended the first CYN coalition meeting are beginning to use the web board and their comments are fantastic. I am enjoying my role as moderator of the discussions.
September 21, 2000
Had a local meeting for CYN members where we watched the tapes of our September 14 coalition meeting in Stephenville. Watching the tapes reinforced the amazing input that the youth had to offer that day. We discussed their reactions to seeing what they had created by taking part in the discussions and/or being part of the filming team. After watching the tapes together I embarked upon the painstaking process of paper editing them in order to trim the content into two hours of video for future play on the local Cable channel.
