La Plaza Board of Directors April 18, 2000 Executive Directors Report
COMMUNITY OUTREACH 1. Angel Fire, NM - presented to the Angel Fire Chamber of Commerce economic development committee regarding the need for information technology in the business community. Several of the AFCC members had attended the ecommerce summit/2000 conference and wanted more information regarding ecommerce provided to the entire committee. 2. La Plaza is providing volunteer staff to the Taos Talking Picture Festival. I hope all La Plaza Board members will be able to visit the Taos Convention Center and view the state-of-the art video section. TTP is utilizing the Town's wireless system for connection to the Internet, installed by La Plaza and Integrity Networking in 1999. 3. Taos Business Alliance - The newly formed Taos Business Alliance held a reception for the newly hired executive director, John Otis - of which I attended. This alliance was formed for economic development in Taos and I am on the board of directors. This past week La Plaza and Taos Business Alliance partnered with two grants, if funded La Plaza will provide computer and ecommerce training. The two funding sources were USWest and HUD Economic Development initiatives. 4. Sunset Magazine published the short article on La Plaza in the April, 2000 issue. This information came from an interview done with me last fall when the magazine did an article on Taos. The writer was very interested in La Plaza and our services in the remote, rural area and he asked for permission from the editor to do the article. I thought it would be more in depth and describe our services. The other towns listed with community technology centers are all in metropolitan areas, unlike northern New Mexico! 5. Pamela Romero, board member, submitted the pictures and story of her computer class she is teaching in Costilla. Alex put a link on the La Plaza home page, be sure and view the page. Pamela is providing a fantastic service in the Costilla community. FUNDING ACQUISITION 1. USWEST Telecommunications: a $100,000 application was submitted to USWest for developing a training classroom in space adjacent to La Plaza's learning center and developing a curriculum for short term training in basic computer skills, different software applications, email use, and ecommerce. The proposal will be read and evaluated by a committee with the USWest Economic Development Opportunity Fund. A notice will be sent in May 2000 regarding the status of the request. 2. National Cancer Institute: Dr. Dave Buller continues to have communication with NCI regarding the cancer grant. NCI has still not released the allocations for the grants approved for funding for this fiscal year. No projected date has been mentioned; however, Dr. Buller is hopeful it will be no later than May 1, 2000. FISCAL 1. The final fiscal and program development report was sent to Los Alamos National Lab Foundation for the $22,597 grant awarded to La Plaza in July 1999. The project goal and objectives were successfully met with the purchase and installation of the new hardware and software. 2. Annual Audit: An extension request was sent to the IRS for La Plaza's 1999 income tax return as we have not hired a CPA to complete the annual audit. Pete Warner and I are talking with CPA's for the completion of the audit. 3. Ray Vollmer has completed the La Plaza inventory of all hardware, furniture, and capital outlay. According to Board Policy, the obsolete equipment inventory will be distributed on May 6, 2000. We will publish classified ads in the Taos News on April 27 and May 4 for "first come, first serve" of the salvage. Also, the lack of a completed equipment inventory was a finding on the 1999 audit, and we are now in compliance to the recommendation. LA PLAZA VISITORS 1. The Plainview School District, Plainview, Texas, technology director and assistant superintendent visited La Plaza to learn more about a community technology center. They have been awarded a $20,000 planning grant to develop a community technology center and chose La Plaza after viewing several different community technology center web sites. They met with the staff on March 22, 2000 and we discussed the many services offered through La Plaza. They are hoping to replicate a similar center for the Plainview community. 2. A private business individual from El Paso, Texas visited La Plaza on March 31, 2000 and discussed his desire to provide information technology to the Hispanic business community in El Paso. He chose La Plaza after visiting several different ctc web sites. 3. Both groups chose to visit La Plaza based on the sustainability success we have had and the impact on the community at large. TECHNOLOGY 1. Peter Alexander and Dawn Redpath met with Alex Chavez, Oban Lambie, and me and viewed the proposed changes in the La Plaza website; i.e. logo, colors, revamping of the site information. 2. Busy signals have diminished greatly due to the additional modems installed in March 2000. Oban will report the data regarding the heavy users of La Plaza for the board and the committee can schedule a meeting for evaluation purposes. MONTHLY STATISTICS 1. Public Access Location Total Users Total Hrs Avg. Session Taos 641 908 1.42 Penasco 339 402 1.19 Questa 278 148 .53 2. Classes Intro to Email 15 Intro to WWW 10 Easy Web Design 13 HTML 7 Promote Website 6 Total 51 3. New Registrations Primary Accts 90 Secondary Accts 10 Reactivated 18 Total 118 4. Closed Accounts 148 notices sent for past due balances of >50 days, 59 accounts were closed due to nonpayment. Holy Cross Hospital transitioned to wireless system and their own email server - 20 Moved - 21 Computer broken - 3 Not using - 5 Secondary accts, not needed - 4 Short-term use - 2 Moved to another ISP - 8 Unable to connect - 8 No reason given - 7 Total per user request - 79 Total closed 59+79 = 138 5. Service Accounts on March 31, 2000 Standard $17.50 dial-up service 1910 Secondary acct - $15.00 sub-service 80 Secondary acct - $7.00 sub-service 279 Scholarship accts - $7.00 30 Paying accts Total 2299 Board accts 9 Staff accts 9 Volunteer accts 4 Nonpaying accts Total 22 Please note, the February totals, with the March registration and closed accounts factored in will not give an accurate figure. The registration and closed account data is not always entered in the ISP software by the last day of the month. However, these accounts are always activated or deactivated on the server. We hope to be able to have accurate numbers for the Board with the board meetings held later in the month, and when we are fully staffed. Respectfully submitted: Judith Pepper Executive Director