Maxine Stewart
Community Communications Facilitator
Community Communications Facilitator
Maxine now has her own website.
More reports can be found on the Sharing Our Future discussion board.
Click here for the latest Ramea Communications Needs, Skills and Resources Mapping Assessment
Report from Ramea
We meet again. While I am typing this, the snow is still falling.
April month started with April Fools Day and a much needed forum. It was aired live from 7-9 p.m and was a success. The forum included taped interviews, informative discussion from among the panelist, phone in question and answer period, and wrap up. Local musicians were pre taped and footage was inserted during the forum.
Received and viewed video from Marie in Burgeo on Pansy's Garden. We did final details on our kids program KOZY KORNER and after a few rehearsals with the children we were ready to begin filming. We did all the taping on our Camcorder and it was aired on Easter Sat. I will try and make a copy to bring with me when I come to Stephenville on May 11. You will see the excellent work that everyone put into Kozy Korner and the camera work was spectacular
Did up thank you cards to be distributed to the individuals who took part in the community forum and handed out Easter treats to the kids who helped with Kozy Korner.
Still working and practicing with the 8 students who are putting together a musical presentation to be aired on channel 8, when they feel they are comfortable to do a live tape.
Working with Rebbeca in getting pictures (past and present).of the graduating class to be used in a presentation to be shown at the Graduation ceremonies.
Met with Nicholas Cutler, a student from The College Of The North Atlantic, who will be working with me for the next couple of weeks, fulfilling his work term commitment in Journalism. We went over a few things we could accomplish and started with a Schools News Telecast. Nicholas, along with myself and the students of the newspaper committee are doing the filming every afternoon after school, when the students are available to do the reporting and entertainment. We still have a bit of work to do on this telecast, it is another ongoing project and I will keep you posted.
Made arrangements for Nicholas to go to the Health Services Committee meeting with Hon. Bill Matthews our MHA in attendance. We have on file photos and a video tape of that meeting.
Posted messages to the Webboard , sent e-mails to Mary, Sim and telephoned Valerie in Burgeo.
Did a monthly report for Cap.
Still collecting material to update the webpage www.geocities.com/ramea_island/index.htm
What worked best? The camcorder we purchased saved us a lot of time when we did Kozy Korner. When the filming was finished we had a completed tape , and we didn't have to do any editing, it was done as we were going.
Summer Project? Right now I have no project planned for the summer, because I thought my job finished at the end of the school year, and started again in September. I'm sure it won't be a problem to find something to do. If it's still ok to work in the school.
Monthly Report for March, 2001
Bur-r-r-r-r it's still winter out here on the "Rock". Most of the snow has gone but the cold temperatures just won't go away. I had a busy month of March clueing up some projects while others are still ongoing.
REACH FOR THE TOP:
After much preparation, our "Reach for the top" was aired on the 6th of March on the Community Channel. It was educational, entertaining, and an enjoyable event for all involved. We had lots of positive feed back from the community and this project has the potential to become a regular event.
COMMUNITY FORUM:
· Interviewed local residents and selected audio clips for the forum.
· Used video clip from the "Youth Forum" to be inserted during the Community Forum.
· Prepared questions and arranged "phone in" callers for the forum.
· Pre taped local musicians (doing original songs about Ramea) for video insertion during forum.
· Selected panelists and prepared bio on each member for the forum.
· Scanned and video taped photographs of Ramea to be shown and discussed during forum.
· Attended "Community Forum", held at and aired from Ramea Broadcasting on April,1/2001
CHILDRENS PROGRAMMING: (Special Events)
Have since met with a group of women regarding, presenting, filming and airing an Easter program for the children on the Community Channel. We discussed background, songs, theme, stories and agenda; and have started rehearsing at this point.
Marie Rose is going to send us a video, "Pansy's Garden" to use as a reference.
OTHER ACTIVITIES / ON GOING · Spent time linking our school newspaper to our web page.
· Currently working with youth at the school who are interested in doing a live musical presentation on community channel.
· Received "Waves" video from Valarie and viewed it; quite enjoyable.
· As Fred requested, I posted a dissemination and promotion report for "Sharing Our Future" for the Ramea area on the Web Board.
· As requested by Mary, I did a report for our CAP Site.
· Still updating the Web Page www.geocities.com/ramea_island/index.htm
· A journalism student from C.O.N.A. has contacted me regarding doing a four week work term in Ramea working with me at the school.
What would you do differently? I would try to stream line the paper trail. I understand that everyone needs to be kept informed with messages to the board and regularly submitted reports to everyone involved; however, I feel that if too much time is spent "reporting", it will leave very little time for actually "doing".
One suggestion for sustaining the SOF process from within your community. We should consider exploring, developing and maintaining programs and events in Ramea that will remain ongoing. (ie) Reach for the Top, community forums, news reports etc.
Snow and more snow! When is it going to end?
I started Feb. with an e-mail to Kelli Penney. While browsing through the www.nf.cap.ca, I noticed that Ramea's site needed to be updated. I requested information on accessing Ramea's site for updating from Kelli and am waiting further directions.
Made contact with Marie Rose at B.B.S. regarding ideas and information about doing a live children's program during Easter at Ramea Broadcasting.
Met with former principle Jim King and teacher Lester Gould regarding topics, format, buzzer system, etc. for students vs. teachers " Reach For The Top", scheduled for Tuesday, March 6th live from Rama Broadcasting.
Because I attended a seminar, " Gathering Voices", in St. John's in Nov., I felt I should attend a literacy meeting with the local representives at St. Boniface All Grade School to share notes.
The Newspaper consumed a lot of my time in Feb.; gathering, proof reading, typing, formatting and is now circulating through the community. Will send you a copy.
Every Wed. night from 7-9, Arlene Rossiter and myself are adding to our new Ramea web page. We have to collect, prepare & process information to be added weekly.
After re-extending an invitation to the seniors and any others in the community to access our local Cap site, I am pleased to announce we have increased attendance from 6 users to a core group of 14 attending regular night sessions. If we see that the numbers are still increasing , we might consider an night a week.
After many meetings, discussions & preparations, we had our youth forum Tuesday, Feb. 27. In attendance were junior/senior high students, teachers, Town Council member, our Mayor and a member from the REDC. The topic was " our Towns Economic's What Next"? It was informative, insightful, and a good experience for all. The forum was video taped, so hopefully we can take clips and contribute them to the community forum. We took pictures from our digital camera, so we can also e-mail copies to you at a later date.
Met with Dave McDonald & Gary Hutchings, Project Manager & Technician for the South West Coast ICT initiative. This initiative will eventually improve communications along the 5 communities of the South West Coast especially Video Conferences , improvement to distant education & internet. I gave them a copy of Ramea's community communications maps. They are working out of the Burgeo Broadcasting building.
Arranged a fund raiser to help of set the cost of our new VHS Palmcorder.
What worked best?
The level of participation during our youth forum and the location provided a smooth flow of activities.
What would I do differently?
I don't think I would have done anything differently. Feb. was a great learning experience for me.
Three issues in our community
Management of our Town services
Role of the towns fish plant.
Maintaining services (medical, ferry hydro,etc.)
January:
. We spent some time looking for the right video camera to purchase, we
finally made a decision and we now have received it . It has a lot of
the special features that we were looking for and the price was right.
We now have to organize a few fundraisers to help set of the cost.
. Our newspaper team are collecting the articles for the school's paper
and we should have our first edition circulated by Feb. 14. Catherine
and Rebecca will be doing an article about their trips they had for the
Community Youth Network.
. Collected together some of Ramea's urls and posted them to the board.
Still putting in some of my time to update a couple of those.
. Met with Arthur Marsden, president of the Senior club and attended one
of their meetings. I invited them to come to the cap site, where we
could have a bit of fun on the net. Five seniors came forward, so we
will take a night and go through Ramea's urls and get them to be able to
send an e-mail.
. Printed the material on tips for forums and took them to the meeting
we had with Greg Hilliar,(Development Officier), Leo Freeborn, Mamie
Strickland and myself. At the meeting we decided to have a youth forum
on Wed. Feb.28 at the school. This forum would be the introduction of
the second forum we have planned for the 18 of March. This one the
adults will be involved. The topic for our forums will be The role of
your fish plant in Ramea. We are still at the planning stage
. We invited the wolf cubs to the cap site and did a bit of basic
computor interest. We e-mailed Switzerland to see if we could get a few
addresses of cubs in the scouting movement there, so each group could
communicate with each other.
. At this stage we have been putting our heads together to see what
things we can do and I feel that all of the plaaning will start to fall
in place.
What would I do differently?
Instead of our school newspaper being distributed to one per classroom,
it would be nice if all the students could get a copy. With the cost of
everything these days we have to watch the spending.
December:
Merry Christmas to one and all. The month of December was really busy
seeing Christmas was right around the corner but things should return to
normal soon. The first thing I did was to take care of the information
that I brought home from Stephenville concerning the Community Access
Program. The committee went through the package and will discuss it in
the new year. I wrote a letter to the REDC, Ramea Broadcasting, St.
Boniface All Grade School, CAP, and the Ramea tourism committee
requesting any available funding to purchase a mobile video camera. Lots
of positive feedback and I will keep you posted. Every Wednesday evening
from 7-9 PM, I help supervise at the CAP site. We have 5 adults that
show up on a regular basis plus students that are helping me update the
various websites on Ramea. Received and answered all E-mails and posted
messages on web board through out the month. Filming and editing took a
big part of my time in December.(steep learning curve !) We video taped
Ramea's Santa Clause Parade, St. Patricks Kids Christmas Party, St.
Boniface Christmas Concert, Church Christmas Pagent, Wolf Cubs and
Beavers Christmas Party, Senior Citizens Christmas Party and the schools
carrolling service. Now we have to edit and produce one nice tape for
all to view on our community channel in the very near future. We
filmed,edited and then aired our "Night before Christmas" tape on
Christmas Eve and it was a job well done.
I answered the list of questions from Mary Barter concerning our CAP
site and E-mailed the answers to Kelli in St. Johns, and added my name
to the list of contact people for SOF.
Valarie called from Burgeo and asked me to pick up some signs that
she had for the Ramea and Francois CAP sites when the weather gets a
little better. She can put the one for Ramea on the Ramea ferry and I
can take care of it from there, but she will have to put the one for
Francois on the Francois ferry when it leaves Burgeo because that ferry
does not call into Ramea at all.
Thats it for December aside from clueing up on monthly report and a
few contacts. Happy New Year to one and all!
November 14/00
Wow the first day at work, looks like it's going to be fun.
Read over the information on SOF and visited the various website.
Was introduced to the staff at St. Boniface All Grade School, and was given the key to the guidance councillor room. Made contact with Marie in Burgeo and made plans to go the next day.
November 15/00
Went to Burgeo to visit Valerie and Marie and had a tour of the Burgeo Broadcasting.
I was really impressed.
November 16/00
Catherine, one of our students returned from her CYN trip, so we talked a bit on that and discussed some of the things we could do in the future.
November 17/00
Went to the classrooms to get acquainted with the students and gave a bit of information about what I would be doing, and that I would be needing volunteers.
November 20/00
Posted notices in junior/ senior classrooms, looking for interested persons to be a part of a communications team. Checked e-mails. Read more information and took notes on my job description.
November 21/00
Got in contact with Sam Fiander at Ramea Broadcasting and arranged for a time for the students to go for a visit. Meet with Lester Gould at the school, to see if I could use one of the computers there. Placed a message on Ryakuga web board.
November 22/00
Met with the students who were attending the YEE conference in Stephenville, to make sure they all had places to stayed in Burgeo and handed out their permission slips. Visited the CAP site in our school, to see what could be done to update the Schools and Rameas home page
November 23/00
Contacted Valerie, to make sure that everything was still on the right track for tomorrow.
November 24/00
Had a meeting after school with the team of students. There are 24 of them.
November 25/00
Visited Ramea Broadcasting with 7 students, those were the ones who were already familiar with the equipment
November 27/00
The internet was down at the school so I calculated my own footprint at home. Checked e-mail and web board . Everyone returned their permission slip to travel to Stephenville.
November 28/00
Received an e-mail from Mary Barter / CAP site application, completed it and will take it to Stephenville with me.
November 29/00
Got together with the kids and calculated their footprint. Catherine, Rebecca and I left on the boat to go to Burgeo.
