Community Outreach

1. Questa Project - the following activities were completed:
• Chris Gillespie and I met with Menice Santistevan-Manzanares, Questa Village Administrator, and discussed the wireless connection for the Questa community. Menice is excited about being included in the pilot project and will participate in the maintenance of the equipment after the 12 months.
• A presentation was made to the Utilities and Telecommunications Legislative Subcommittee on Monday, October 5, 1998 by Michael Bearden, Chris Gillespie, and Elmer Salazar regarding the project. The subcommittee is very interested in the project and the impact on the health and education facilities.
• I met with Nick Shields, Polson-Mercer Insurance representative, regarding the liability insurance for the 30-foot tower. As the tower will be installed on the property leased by La Plaza, the existing liability insurance provides the necessary coverage.
• I received approval from Mike Stanford, property owner of La Plaza lease, for the install of the tower. Mr. Stanford requested a letter, which has been sent, stating La Plaza would hold Mr. Stanford harmless should there be any accidents relating to the tower.
2. I attended a meeting for the 3^rd Tango in Taos Golf Tournament and fundraiser for nonprofit organizations in Taos, which will be held in June, 1999. I propose the Public Relations Committee take this project as fundraiser for 1999.
3. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has submitted the 2^nd round of RFP’s for the Managing Information in Rural America projects, (MIRA). I have met with Bill Swan and he is interested in facilitating the project with the community to form the necessary teams and develop the RFP to send to Kellogg. La Plaza’s only participation will be to assist Bill with the grant application. If the MIRA grant were approved, then La Plaza will submit the application to be a Community Support Organization to support the teams with their special projects.
4. La Plaza Telecommunity and Presbyterian Medical Services Foundation sent a cooperative request to the Ted Turner Foundation for 2 year funding of the public access site at the Questa Youth Center. Included in the request are dollars for the Community Outreach Trainer, an assistant for the computer lab, Field Tech Support, and some hardware. Included in the hardware dollars is money to purchase a new server for La Plaza, and upgrade the computers in the Youth Center computer lab. We will be notified in December if the grant request is approved.
5. National Rural Telecommunications Conference: Nancy Montano and I attended the Rural TelCon Conference in Aspen on October 5 and 6. The conference attendees are organizations providing telecommunications in rural America, i.e.; telephone companies, universities, federal and state agencies, telecommunities, and private vendors. La Plaza Telecommunity continues to have a positive national reputation among the attendees. One attendee stated she reads the Board minutes on line, and is amazed at the accomplishments of La Plaza over the past 19 months! I networked with several people, the most interesting being Peter Law from the University of Virginia. Peter is coordinating with the 4-H youth groups in Virginia a technology project that teaches the youth the use of computers. I will meet with Taos County 4-H and begin a dialogue of possible collaborative projects for our youth.

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Technology Update

Michael Bearden will upgrade the modem software to V.90. V.90 is a modem communication standard developed by and agreed upon by the creators of both Kflex and x2 modem communication standards. It standardizes the communication protocol for 56K Modems. Previously, x2 modems could only communicate with x2 modems and 56K Modems could only communicate with Kflex modems at 56K. With the change to V.90, La Plaza can now communicate with both x2 and 56K modems.

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September Monthly Statistics

Public Access Users

Questa public access will be open in the next several weeks, after the training is complete for Rene Martinez, Questa community outreach trainer.

Classes

Loretta Suazo held a class for Rocky Mountain Youth Corps for 10 youth and covered use of email and the WWW. She also completed a 6-week training session for 9 non-English speaking woman referred by the Community Wellness Council. These women did not have computer experience nor had they been in a recent classroom situation. Loretta held all classes in Spanish; Introduction to Computers, Windows 95, Internet, Email, and WWW. The 9 women successfully completed the classes and a several women asked for a one-hour time slot with Loretta to continue coming to La Plaza as a group.

Registrations

Closed Accounts

Net Change In Accounts: 68 gained

Telephone Statistics

Dial-in Statistics

Number of Memberships / October 8, 1998

108 Memberships

Judith Pepper, Executive Director, La Plaza Telecommunity