(Notice revised on January 29, 1999 - with full speaker list)
Seminar/workshop for community groups and local government--
YEAR 2000 (Y2K) AND COMMUNITY PREPAREDNESS
Wed February 17th 1999
5.00 pm - 7.00 pm (informal discussion afterwards)
4th floor Meeting Room
Ross House
247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne City
Please book to secure a place. Please send only one person per body
(See contact details at the end.)
This message summarises the Y2K problem in a couple of sentences. It
spells out the purpose of the seminar/workshop and outlines the
program. Links to a wealth of information on Y2K (including how to
subscribe to a free email information list) are given at the end,
along with the contact details for the organisers.
The Y2K problem:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Many computer systems, software and chips embedded in machines and
appliances store date information in truncated form eg. 98 for 1998.
Unless they are fixed, when the year 2000 (truncated to 00) comes
around these systems will not know whether the year is 1900 or 2000.
As a result the systems may malfunction. Banks, power stations,
lifts, traffic lights, aircraft, trains and chemical factories etc.
could possibly be affected.
Preventive action
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Government agencies and companies are spending literally billions of
dollars trying to fix the problem. But since many of them started too
late it will be impossible to fix and test everything before the year
2000 comes around. So some systems will malfunction.
Nobody knows accurately what the impacts of these malfunctions will
be, so businesses and government agencies are starting to prepare
contingency plans for coping if, say, there are power brownouts or
rationing for a few days or planes are grounded for a while.
The need for community preparedness
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Just as businesses and government bodies need to prepare contingency
plans, so do households and communities. Also, there is no doubt that
people will cope better with any disruptions if the community is well
prepared and people are ready to help each other.
To date there has been virtually no action to encourage communities
to prepare or to help them to do so. Community groups, governments
and businesses need to work together to ensure that community
preparedness activities do occur as soon as possible.
The purpose of the seminar/workshop
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The purpose of the seminar/workshop is to assist community groups and
local governments:
(a) to understand the Y2K issue in general, to give people a
picture of the degree of remediation work already in train and
to identify possibilities for community preparedness activities;
(b) to provide an opportunity for groups to think about what
community preparedness activities could be initiated in
Victoria - including what they themselves could do.
The program
^^^^^^^^^^
There will be an hour long briefing session followed by an hour
workshop to consider action.
The Hon. Bill Forwood, the Chair of the Parliamentary Public Accounts
and Estimates Committee will be a speaker in the briefing session. In
November 98, the Committee released a major report on the Y2K issue
and the state of preparedness of the Victorian public sector.
Robert Theobald, UK born US resident, economist, futurist and author
of the ABC series, the Healing Century, will talk about Y2K and
resilient communities.
Philip Buckle, Manager, State Emergency Recovery Unit, Department of
Human Services will outline the State Government's activities in the
area of community preparedness.
Hayden Raysmith, of the Victorian Local Governance Association, will
discuss the role of local government in Y2K community preparedness.
He will cover the role of local government as a whole including the
activities of the Municipal Association of Victoria.
Who is invited?
^^^^^^^^^^^^
The seminar/workshop has been organised principally for community
groups and local councils. (Individuals, government agencies or
businesses interested in community preparedness are welcome as well.)
Who is behind the seminar/workshop?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The seminar/workshop is organised by Green Innovations (a think tank
organisation that works on sustainability issues).
Project partners for the seminar/workshop include the Municipal
Association of Victoria, the Victorian Local Governance Association,
the Victorian Council of Social Service, the Brotherhood of St
Laurence, Community Aid Abroad, Environment Victoria and the
Australian Conservation Foundation.
This Y2K community preparedness program is supported by grants from
the Myer Foundation and another Foundation. RMIT University is
supporting the project by providing the email listserver.
If you can't attend
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If you can't attend, contact us and we will get you information on the
issue another way. If the demand for the seminar/workshop is high
enough we will consider repeating it. See the contact details at the
end of the message.
Information sources
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
A web site with links to a wealth of other sites:
http://www.peg.apc.org/~psutton/grin-y2k.htm
Email list:
Ask Green Innovations to subscribe you to the *free* info list (~
10 messages a week) - this keeps you in touch with the issue and
the people working on it. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
=====================================================
>>> Please copy & send this message to as many organisations &
>>> individuals as possible.
=====================================================
Authorised by:
Philip Sutton
Director - Policy and Strategy
Green Innovations Inc.
195 Wingrove Street
Fairfield (Melbourne) VIC 3078
AUSTRALIA
Tel & fax: +61 3 9486-4799
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.peg.apc.org/~psutton/green-innovations.html
Victorian Registered Association Number: A0026828M
LL.VB
