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The CommunityNet Aotearoa monthly newsletter.
"News and views on community networking throughout Aotearoa."
The Social Work Study Awards are for employees of Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) who have previously studied or who are already engaged in study and who want to complete a social work qualification that meets the educational requirements for Social Worker Registration. The 2009 application round opens on 30 June and closes on 26 September.
www.community.net.nz/hottopics/digital-strategy/news/ngo-study-awards.htm
Christchurch Community House Tenants Trust is looking for two or three Community Groups interested in renting affordable office space.
www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news/national/office-space.htm
If you have not yet applied to register your organisation with the Charities Commission, remember that there are now only a few days until tax laws change. It’s important to get your application in now, before the 1 July 2008 deadline (posted 16 June).
www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news/national/last-days.htm
The Good Practice Participate website hosted by the Office for the Community and Voluntary Sector (OCVS) has had a major makeover. The new-look site has improved menu structures and navigation, an effective search engine, new content and extra resources.
www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news/national/good-practice.htm
A new research report 'How do New Zealanders give?' estimates that almost 80 percent of volunteers have also donated money or goods in the previous 12 months. The report was released to coincide with Volunteer Awareness Week (15 - 21 June) celebrations.
www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news/national/generosity.htm
Since 2002, government has completed significant work in response to the Government Policy on Volunteering and as part of the Government Volunteering Work Programme. In June 2008, this work was summarised by the Office for the Community Voluntary Sector, and reported to Cabinet in the document 'Government Support for Volunteering 2002-2008'. You can download the report from the OCVS website.
www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news/national/volunteering-report.htm
Matariki is based on early traditions, and something special for all New Zealanders to share. It connects us with our unique Maori heritage, nature and creative expression. This year's Auckland regional festival hosts an exciting programme of over 50 events and activities at various venues. Many of these are free.
www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news/national/matariki.htm
The government has announced that state-funded tertiary education institutions, state and integrated schools, and non-resident charities will not have to register with the Charities Commission to retain their tax-exempt status. The legislation will also introduce a transitional measure, to be used in limited circumstances, to protect the tax-exempt status of organisations that run into difficulty with completing their registration applications before the deadline.
www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news/national/tax-changes.htm
Latest community news, events, jobs and ads are online at:www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/news.
Bridleways Auckland is an information and advocacy group for recreational horse riders. Find maps, photos, planning and contact information for horse riding recreation areas in the Auckland region.
http://bridleways.googlepages.com
Youth Week is about creating a society that values young people and affirms their diversity. The week aims to highlight the amazing things young people (12-24 years) do and to encourage young people's participation and connections to their communities.
www.youthweek.co.nz
The Computer Clubhouse provides a creative and safe after-school learning environment where young people from under-served communities work with adult mentors to explore their own ideas, develop skills, and build confidence in themselves through the use of technology.
www.clubhouse274.org.nz
Provides information on classes in the oldest known jujistu. Daito-ryu is a highly sophisticated, practical, dynamic, elegant martial art. New enrolments are welcome!
http://geocities.com/aiki.jujitsu
Celebrate Matariki - Maori new year with us. Based on early traditions, Matariki is something special for all New Zealanders to share. It connects us with our unique Maori heritage, nature, creativity and expression.
www.matarikifestival.org.nz
A 12-step group with a long history of working with people to achieve personal growth and understanding for better living within the community.
http://grow.org.nz
Interpreting Wellington is an independent, not-for-profit incorporated society established in 1993. We provide interpreting or 'spoken translation' to support effective communications between non-English speakers and government agencies or private businesses.
www.interpret.org.nz
Te Ropu Taurahere o Tainui i Te Whanganui-a-Tara, the official Tainui Taurahere Group in the Wellington region providing a supportive, friendly, whanau network for all Tainui - Waikato Maori living in the Wellington region.
www.wkrp.weebly.com
The New Zealand Speleological Society is a national organisation of people who are interested in matters to do with caves and caving. The Society's members, officers, and affiliated clubs, organise both exploration and recreational trips to caves throughout New Zealand (and occasionally overseas).
http://caves.org.nz
The New Zealand Deerstalkers Association is a national body committed to the promotion of hunting as a sport. Its mission statement is: “to retain, enhance and create opportunities for the enjoyment of legitimate recreational hunting and the sport of shooting, for the members of the Association?
http://hvnzda.org.nz
The Wellington Caving Group is a friendly bunch of underground enthusiasts who organise regular caving trips, interspersed from time to time by bicycle, kayaking, and tramping trips.
http://caving.wellington.net.nz
The Tararua Tramping Club is the longest established tramping club in Wellington. If you’re interested in outdoor activities, conservation issues, or simply need some healthy exercise and want to meet some friendly people, we may have what you’re looking for.
http://ttc.org.nz
Rainbow Youth is an Auckland-based charitable organization which provides support and services to Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Trasgender, Takataapui, Fa'afafine, intersex and queer-identified youth. Run by Youth for Youth. We provide support in the form of youth groups and a wide network of professional support, advocacy and resources.
www.rainbowyouth.org.nz/welcome
Canterbury Heritage is the only journal devoted exclusively to the province's social history and cultural heritage. The journal offers new perspectives on and insights into the past, through stories that may be well known, or may have been ignored, or erased from the public record.
http://canterburyheritage.blogspot.com
SuperGrans is a group of experienced and knowledgeable people offering practical tuition in household management to enable others to make the most of the resources including finances available to them. The aim is to pass on those many good tips and ideas SuperGrans volunteers have been able to learn from their life experiences.
www.supergran.org.nz
Links to complete eBooks still covered by copyright. Novels, mystery, romance, saga, self-help, history, and more. They are legal, in most cases from the author’s own website. Also has a handy “Leap Over Web Clutter?section for quick research of most tasks.
http://newfreebooks.com
NetBasics (developed by NetSafe) outlines all the different internet computer security issues that may confront you at work and at home. The series of animated episodes explain how to protect yourself from some of the nastiest stuff the internet has to offer.
www.netbasics.org.nz
Canterbury Webhealth is designed so the Canterbury community has local, up-to-date relevant information on Health and Social Services. Our purpose is to assist people in accessing the information; services; and support that best meets their needs.
www.canterbury.webhealth.co.nz
Personal development training for your peak performance. Building people in their family life, personal life and business life; showing them a better way to live.
www.bsbnz.org
Goodbooks is the online bookstore with a conscience. Every time you buy a book from Goodbooks - any book - we contribute all profits to Oxfam to help fight its global battle against poverty and social injustice. There is no extra cost to you. Help us open a new chapter in the fight against inequality.
www.goodbooksnz.co.nz
Christchurch Community House gathers a diverse range of welfare and social service community agencies all under one roof. We provide information and facilities from a convenient central city location to the public and community groups.
www.cch.org.nz/index.html
You'll find these and more links at:www.community.net.nz/links.
These Events are coming up in the next few weeks. Find details at: www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/events.
These Training events are coming up in the next few weeks. Find details at: www.community.net.nz/communitycentre/training.
If you have an email address like anna@xtra.co.nz or bert@actrix.co.nz or cd.family@paradise.net.nz then you're using the domain name of your Internet provider. If you then switch providers --- going from Xtra to Actrix, for example --- you have the whole hassle of changing your email address.
You have to tell everyone you know, figure out who you may have given the address to, such as the electricity company, clubs you belong to, your doctor or dentist. It's a huge nuisance.
You can probably pay the previous provider to keep sending emails on to you, but you may prefer to spend that money on something else.
This is where having your own, personal domain name really comes into its own. It's yours. It's attached to you. It stays with you. Emails addressed to miraz@firstbite.co.nz find their way to me whether I use TelstraClear, Actrix, or some provider in the US, India or Finland. It just doesn't matter *how* I connect to the Internet; my firstbite.co.nz domain name is mine.
There are many places that sell domain names. Two I've used, that have good prices and that I'm happy to recommend, are Freeparking in New Zealand and GoDaddy in the USA. I have recently bought an .info domain name from GoDaddy for US$0.99 and another from Freeparking for NZ$40. I use both organisations because between them they allow me to choose from more names and services.
http://freeparking.co.nz
http://godaddy.com
The domain name is the part of an email address that comes after the @ sign, for example firstbite.co.nz, community.net.nz, gmail.com, xtra.co.nz, google.com. Wikipedia has more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_names
Usually .co.nz or .com are used for businesses, .org or .org.nz for non-profit groups, and certain domains, such as .govt, .mil, or .iwi.nz are reserved for specific types of organisations.
Each country has its own two letter extension, too, such as .nz, .au, .uk, and so on. Some have 'desirable' extensions, such as .me (Montenegro), .to (Tonga), .tv (Tuvalu). There's a full list at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_code_top-level_domain
There are several domains available and suitable for personal use, such as .info, .name, .geek.nz, and .gen.nz, or perhaps one with a country code that appeals to you. Some small countries earn a lot of income from selling domain names that use their country code.
The good thing about a personal domain name, unlike one for a business or organisation, is that it can be anything that takes your fancy. Keep in mind though, that you may at some time want to use an email address based on that domain name for something serious such as applying for a job or a grant.
The downside of a domain name is that you don't actually buy it. Instead you rent it. There's an annual cost for every domain name. With FreeParking that cost is usually around NZ$40 per year. That's a lot less than a Post Office box in a city such as Wellington, and only a few dollars more than the cost of the current best selling book at Whitcoulls.
The next tip will explain how to use a domain name you own for email or even a website. There are ways to do this for free, or at least very low cost.
Meanwhile think up and buy a domain name for yourself --- or perhaps one for each family member --- it would be a great gift!
Some companies will immediately register any domain you search for through their service, meaning you then can't use it yourself. This practice is known as 'domain tasting'. The two companies I mentioned above do not do this. For more information about domain tasting read 'Who Is Monitoring Your Domain Searches?':
www.dailydomainer.com/200775-domain-tasting-monitoring-searches.html
Disclaimer: This article reflects the personal opinions of Miraz Jordan. CommunityNet Aotearoa and the Department of Internal Affairs do not in any way endorse any domain name registrar.
What's your topic? What is your community organisation about? Does it involve keywords, such as 'breast cancer', 'prostate cancer', 'conservation', 'poverty' or the like?
Do you know what the world at large are saying about your topic, and when they're saying it? Or when they're searching for information about it?
Did you know that searches on Google for the phrase 'breast cancer' spiked in May 2005 when news reports appeared that Kylie Minogue was diagnosed with breast cancer? That would have been a good time for local groups concerned with breast cancer or women's health to take actions such as publicity or fundraising.
We often have a feeling about what's in the News --- we hear a few reports and notice that for a few days everyone's talking about a particular topic. But search engine titan Google has access to real statistics, and is happy to share them with us, entirely free of charge. Visit Google Trends to do some research:
www.google.com/trends
Here's what they say: "With Google Trends, you can compare the world’s interest in your favourite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they’ve been searched on Google over time. Google Trends also shows how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and in which geographic regions people have searched for them most."
You can find detailed Help and information for Google Trends at http://www.google.com/intl/en/trends/about.html, as well as some cautions about accuracy.
I tried searching for two phrases: 'prostate cancer, breast cancer'. The resulting graphs showed that the number of searches for prostate cancer had remained steady at a constant low level since January 2004, with only almost imperceptible fluctuations. Meanwhile the number of searches for breast cancer was considerably higher over that whole period, with half a dozen noticeable spikes that appeared to correlate with certain news items. The 'Kylie Minogue' spike was the greatest, but other spikes appeared when news items mentioned breast cancer in conjunction with drugs, alcohol or hormones.
More detailed analysis by country and even city is also available further down the page. If you sign in to the Google Trends page with a (free) Google Account then you have access to even more refined data.
Another interesting feature is the 10 Hot Trends listed on the front page, or click the More Hot Trends link to see the top 100. The day I visited most of the top spots were taken up with names of celebrities, but there was also a sprinkling of US politics and international current events.
Google Trends has an RSS feed available for the Hot Trends, so it's easy to keep an eye on what people are searching for.
It's worth spending half an hour to explore this free tool, and to consider how your organisation could make use of the rich data it offers. Next time there's a sudden surge in searches for whatever's at the core of your activity, will you spot it and take action? Or perhaps you can hook in to what's popular some other way. Take a look and see what's there for you.
Panui tips contributed by Miraz Jordan, http://mactips.info/
Past Website tips are all available on CommunityNet Aotearoa.
In June 2008 there were 75,713 visits (May: 57,776).
Last month, 69 new community items were published:
Send in your free community notice or advertisement at:
www.community.net.nz/about/submit.
There were files 9,937 downloaded in June (May: 9,682). The most popular file download in June was the MOU template and guide to its causes with 378 downloads. In May this was the Employment section of the Community Resource Kit (560 Downloads).
Find CommunityNet statistics at: www.community.net.nz/about/website/statistics.htm.
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Nick Stanley, Web Content Writer.
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Panui and CommunityNet Aotearoa are guided by an Advisory Group drawn from community organisations and are published by Department of Internal Affairs, PO Box 805, Wellington. Phone: 04 4957200. Email: information@community.net.nz.
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