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The CommunityNet Aotearoa monthly newsletter.
"News and views on community networking throughout Aotearoa."
This is the last Panui for 2005; our next issue will come to you in February 2006. Although the website will be open for you to send in items of interest and find useful information we will not be approving items or updating the site between 22 December and 10 January. Updates may take longer than usual between 17 December and 17 January.
We wish all community groups, volunteers, paid and unpaid workers the compliments of the season and hope you enjoy a relaxing and refreshing break.
On 29th November the CommunityNet Advisory Group farewelled two founding members — Georgina Johnson and Ross Bell — and welcomed new members Julia Stuart, Moana Tane and David Henderson. Puipuifatu Antonio William Seiuli was also welcomed recently. www.community.net.nz/CommunityCentre/News/National/ag-membership.htm.
The call for Expressions of Interest in the first round of the Digital Strategy Community Partnership Fund close on 12th December 2005. www.digitalstrategy.govt.nz/.
The 'Keeping It Legal' resource was launched on 5th December by the Hon. Winnie Laban, Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, during International Volunteer Day. Produced by NZFVWO and OCVS, Keeping it Legal helps fill the need of community and voluntary organisations to know about and manage their legal obligations. www.community.net.nz/CommunityCentre/News/National/keeping-it-legal-launched.htm.
The December edition of Community Matters marks International Volunteer Day on 5 December and highlights the contribution volunteers make in New Zealand communities. www.community.net.nz/CommunityCentre/News/National/community-matters.htm.
The eNewsletter of the Office for the Community and Voluntary Sector will keep you in touch with what the office is up to and provide you with some news from the community and voluntary sector. To subscribe send an email to: ocvs@msd.govt.nz, with your name, and postal address. www.community.net.nz/CommunityCentre/News/National/ocvs-nnewsletter.htm.
A refreshing view to violence prevention is at the heart of an exciting programme 17 to 19 November 2005 culminating in the launch of a waka tete on the Whaingaroa Harbour. www.community.net.nz/CommunityCentre/News/National/waka-launch.htm.
The new website for the Office of the Community and Voluntary Sector was developed to provide clear picture of the role of the OCVS, and to provide an overview of the activities and projects it is involved in. www.community.net.nz/CommunityCentre/News/National/ocvs-website.htm.
The Al-Anon Family Groups are a fellowship of relatives and friends of alcoholics who share their experience, strength, and hope, in order to solve their common problems. www.al-anon.org.nz.
Youth Law provides access to information about how the law can help young people to overcome issues that may be affecting them. A free phone advice line is also available. www.youthlaw.co.nz.
openDemocracy stands for human rights and democracy. openDemocracy.net is dedicated to opening up a democratic space -- free thinking for the world. They publish clarifying debates which help people make up their own minds, use the web to build and map intelligent discussions, which accumulate and expand daily. www.opendemocracy.net.
UPA NZ supports those who promote and advance the development of usable products, reaching out to people who act as advocates for usability and the user experience. UPA members come from across the broad family of disciplines that create the user experience. The Wellington chapter focusses mainly on the Internet. www.upa.org.nz.
The Office for the Community and Voluntary Sector eNewsletter will keep you in touch with what the office is up to and provide you with some news from the community and voluntary sector. To subscribe send an email to: ocvs@msd.govt.nz, with your name, and postal address. www.ocvs.govt.nz/publications.
Housing New Zealand has about 1,400 rental homes for community groups that offer residential support services. Groups renting these properties offer services for people with special needs, such as emergency accommodation, support for people with disabilities, and care facilities for families and children. For more information call 0800 833 755. www.hnzc.co.nz/rental/communitygrouphousing.htm.
CommunityNet is an interactive website designed to provide up to date information and news relating to the community Sector in New South Wales. http://www.communitynet.ngo.net.au/.
The database provides updateable links to community contacts throughout Tauranga and the surrounding area. The Compass Community Database is a partnership between the Compass Community Foundation and Tauranga City Council. compass.tauranga.govt.nz.
Yellow Jerseys qualitative market and social research helps clients understand why behaviour occurs, why perceptions exist and what the implications are for businesses, for the public sector, for non-profits, for service delivery and for community development. www.yellowjerseys.co.nz.
Web Standards NZ aims to raise the standard of websites in New Zealand through:
webstandards.net.nz.
RadioNZ is the "voice of New Zealand" broadcasting programmes that reflect and develop our national identity. The website now includes streaming audio and daily and weekly archives, so you can listen to programmes missed first time. www.radionz.co.nz.
Kotare Trust organises workshop programmes and develops community research on social change issues. kotare.org.nz.
CommunityAction for People and Planet exists to educate & empower communities to increase the quality of life in their own backyards. The group also print a seasonal magazine and coordinate grassroots projects. http://www.communityaction.enzyme.org.nz/.
Arthritis New Zealand is the national voluntary organisation in New Zealand which represents the interests of those with arthritis. The website contains news, information and links about the various forms of arthritis, treatment and support available. www.arthritis.org.nz.
A key point of contact in government for community, voluntary and tangata whenua organisations at the national policy level. The Office works alongside government departments who are developing policy that impacts on the community and voluntary sector. www.ocvs.govt.nz.
Central and Local Government Working Together: Local authorities have a role in achieving community outcomes for their citizens around the economic, environmental, social and cultural wellbeings of communities, under the Local Government Act 2002. Department of Internal Affairs provides directories of central and local government with a role in this, and other resources of interest to community and voluntary groups. www.dia.govt.nz/copwebsite.nsf.
Natural Fertility New Zealand teaches you to identify the fertile time of your menstrual cycle. The method can be used to optimise your chances of conceiving and also to avoid pregnancy. www.naturalfertility.co.nz.
Designed to cater for all members of the public in the Otago region. Highlights are the on-line directory, newsletters, and projects. www.disabilityinfo.co.nz.
If you've used services such as Del.icio.us to share bookmarks or Flickr to share photos then you will have come across the idea of tags.
The idea behind tags is that you can add metadata for a bookmark, a photo, or in fact anything else. A tag acts as a label or a keyword. Metadata is information which describes other information.
For example, I took a photo of the Whale Tail sculpture on Oriental Parade in Wellington.
www.flickr.com/photos/cna/65971118.
The photo shows a bronze whale's tail and some indistinct city in the background. Adding tags such as Wellington, Oriental Parade, art and sculpture allows people to find the photo by searching on or gathering together items with those words.
Tags make powerful relationships possible. Groups can set up around a particular tag and build community. For example, see the wheelchair clusters on Flickr. Then take a look at the Del.icio.us items tagged with wheelchair:
This kind of tagging is called folksonomy, which Wikipedia says is "a portmanteau word that combines "folk" and "taxonomy," [and] refers to the on-the-fly classifications (called tags or keywords) that Internet users freely invent to categorize the objects with which they interact online". Tags create informal social categories.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy.
This may all seem no different from using keywords in your work so that search engines such as Google can index it. Keywords though are more neutral and scientific, while tags allow us as human beings to add an emotional element which can describe our response to the world around us.
What's more, others can generally add tags to items they find, allowing for a broader commentary on items. It's a trivial example, but in the Whale Tail photo a viewer may be intrigued by the hills, cranes, sea or buildings and add those as tags. Or the photo may symbolise for a viewer notions of conservation, loneliness, connectedness or some other concept which may never occur to me as creator of the image. If they add relevant tags the photo's worth and meaning are enhanced.
What's more keywords are generally included in text attached to the item and can really only describe what is actually there, rather than what is implied. I can add half a dozen tags to my Whale Tail photo to include otherwise 'invisible' information, such as the location, and that it belongs to the category of 'art'. It would be annoying and difficult to construct headings and sentences which would be useful and meaningful and incorporate all the relevant ideas.
There's much much more to the Internet than email and web pages. As a medium for both information storage and communication we are starting to create new ways to form and strengthen community. Tags are one powerful tool in the process.
[December 2005] How do you manage projects? Scraps of paper? Expensive software? Brain cells? Try Basecamp, a free online tool.
Basecamp allows you to manage one project free. To manage a number of projects at the same time you will need to sign up for the paid service, which starts at USD$12 per month for 3 projects.
You can set your Milestones, such as the date of the Conference or book launch or Open Day. Basecamp then tracks how long you have until each Milestone, and warns you if the date has passed but the Milestone has not been achieved.
In order to achieve a milestone there are certain tasks various people have to do. You can list these tasks and allocate them to people. Mark off what's finished and filter by person.
Keep important files in one place for everyone to access, but note that you need your own FTP server. You may need cover art and chapters for a book, perhaps, or a style guide for reference, or perhaps photos to go in the resource kit. A central storage area means everyone can add or call up files. It's very easy to upload files via a form. Anyone can do it.
A writeboard is a place where you can create a document and others can edit it. This is great for collaborating on a document such as a funding proposal or a report. When the document is finished you can email it, export it as a text file or as a (high quality) web page.
Thanks to the RSS feed you don't need to log in just to check for new items. The RSS feed automatically alerts you to updates, including letting you know who is responsible for any To Do items.
You can see all the 'To Do's, messages, milestones and files from the overview screen.
Basecamp has many more features and offers several advantages:
Past Website tips are all available on CommunityNet Aotearoa.
The survey earlier this year gave feedback on information website visitors wanted added to the How-To guides. A number of these suggestions have already been acted on by adding information to an existing Guide. Others required a new Guide.
Some possible new guides being considered by the Advisory Group are:
We'd like to hear from you if you have a particular need, resources you can recommend (preferably ones we don't already have!) or help you can offer in any of these areas. Note — the Managing Well catalogue (recently added to CommunityNet) has some good resources for the first two.
We'll be working on this over the next few months. If you'd like to help test the prototypes — when we have them — please drop us an email. Testers who using assistive technologies, or are in the Wellington area, would be especially welcomed. Email: information@community.net.nz.
Our site audit earlier this year was generally favourable, but listed some things for improvement. We've fixed most of these, and will be working on the rest over the next month.
In November 2005 there were 49,728 (52,478) visits.
Overall, 54 items were submitted (61).
Send in your free community advertisement at: www.community.net.nz/About/Submit/default.htm.
Please do forward the complete Panui to others who'll find it useful.
With Season's Greetings from the CommunityNet team.
Miraz Jordan, Webmaestro.
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