La Plaza Telecommunity Board of Directors Meeting July 18, 2000 Executive Directors Report
I. June Monthly Statistics 1. PUBLIC ACCESS USERS: LOCATION TOTAL USERS TOTAL HRS AVG SESS Taos 967 1095.22 1.13 hrs Penasco 248 532.50 2.15 hrs Questa 493 439.15 .89 hrs 2. CLASSES: Intro to WWW 5 Intro to Email 10 Open Studio 30 Total 45 3. NEW REGISTRATIONS: New Primary accounts 87 New Secondary 13 Reactivated 19 Free accts 01 Total 120 4. Closed Accounts: 171 notices were sent regarding past due balances. A total of 56 accounts were closed due to past due balances. Of the 56 accounts, which were closed, 15 have reactivated as of July 12, 2000. Closed Accounts Per User Request: 45 Computer Broken 2 Secondary 2 Moved 17 Not using 6 Moved to another ISP 4 Other Reasons 4 Unable to connect 9 Temp discon 1 II. Community Outreach 1. Presented on June 21, 2000 to La Jicarita Enterprises Community board the Penasco Wireless project. LJEC connected through the wireless system their administrative offices and Incubator facility. The board presented a Certificate of Appreciation to La Plaza for the innovative project. 2. Nancy Montano and I attended the Taos Business Alliance annual meeting and dinner. As we introduced ourselves I had the opportunity to share with the participants that Nancy had been awarded the 2000 CTCNet Innovative Leadership Award. 3. The Executive Director and Director of Region Operations of the Texas Tech University Small Business Development Center located in Lubbock, TX visited La Plaza on July 11, 2000. The University President attended the workshop session I presented at the Dept of Commerce Ecommerce conference in Albuquerque and recommended this staff visit to learn more about the operations of a Community Technology Center, specifically La Plaza. Barb Hau, Internet Health Nurse, met with them also and we have established a good relationship with the SBDC. We will continue to communicate and hope to collaborate on community technology services for economic development and health care. 4. Nancy Montano was chosen to receive the Community Technology Centers Network (CTCNet) 2000 Innovative Leadership award. A brief summary of Nancy 's accomplishments was submitted and the nominating committee found her to be the worthy recipient of the award and $1500! III. Funding Acquisition 1. McCune Foundation: A $20,000 Letter of Intent submitted to McCune Foundation in Santa Fe was approved and a full application was requested from Owen Lopez, Mc Cune Director. The grant will incorporate 15 Taos County at-risk youth in the Open Studio arts project - the youth will be trained to use the computer, communications and multimedia presentations. If the grant is approved, $12,500 will be allocated to Personnel for a portion of the Project Director's salary, and a $500 stipend for each of the 15 youth completing the entire technology training. A youth-centered production team will be established to develop a virtual archive of cultural activities, artifacts and oral histories of Taos County. Nancy Montano, as Project Director, is collaborating with Channel-Two television station in developing a grant to develop a multimedia-authoring lab for e-publishing that incorporates computer, Internet, film production and graphic art technology. This grant will provide a multi-media lab for training and use by the public. 2. USWest did not approve the $100,000 grant for developing the La Plaza Training Center. 3. Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation - A $26,000 Letter of Intent was submitted to LANL Foundation to develop the physical and technical infrastructure of the training center. LANL will review the letter and if interested will request a full application for consideration. 4. Public Welfare Foundation, New York City - A $50,000 Letter of Intent was submitted to Public Welfare Foundation to develop the personnel and curriculum model for the training center. 5. Ebay Foundation - A $22,500 Letter of Intent was submitted to Ebay to include more youth in the Open Studio grant. Those dollars will be allocated for Personnel costs and multimedia equipment. IV. Fiscal Report 1. Annual Audit - Gary Benn, CPA, has begun requesting fiscal documents for the audit. As mentioned in the June ED report, the audit will be completed within 60 days. 2. An amended budget and June Financial reports will be presented at the Board meeting for review and approval. V. Technology 1. Picuris Peak - additional solar panels and batteries have been ordered and will be installed within the next several weeks. The existing panels and batteries do not provided the amount of power required for the system. The engineers miscalculated the power requirements and with the recent rainy, cloudy days the necessary amount of sunshine has not been available for the power stream. The additional hardware will be sufficient for the 4 seasons in northern New Mexico. 2. Mike Ortiz has developed a security protocol for the La Plaza system, which he reported on at the June Board meeting. Hardware and software have been ordered and Mike projects completed install by September 1, 2000. 3. Mike Ortiz reviewed all the technical support assistance from ISPPower and noted a specific instruction that had not been implemented by Oban Lambie. Mike followed the instructions and found the errors of ISPPower to be corrected with the instructions. Once this occurred, Loretta Suazo and Mike successfully ran monthly billing on July 5! A letter of apology was sent to ISPPower to reestablish our technical support with the software company. VI. La Plaza Celebration 1. La Plaza has not publicly announced the beautiful mural donated and painted by several area artists in the Learning Center. Staff decided to schedule a celebration on August 15, 2000 to "unveil" the mural, publicly thank the artists and announce Nancy Montano's CTCNet award. The celebration will be held from 4:00 - 6:00 PM and we hope all Board members will be able to attend and celebrate with the public. We will announce the celebration in the August newsletter and will send out invitations to some local and regional people. We hope Fred Peralta, Mayor, will be able to attend and award Nancy with the CTCNet award. You will receive more information in the near future. Respectfully submitted: Judith Pepper Executive Director