[Winona Online Democracy]
WOD Meeting 7/22/03 4-5:30 pm City Hall Heritage Room
Scant Notes by Randy Schenkat
Present: Roy Nasstrom, Forest Weinstock, Kathy Seifert, Craig Brooks,
Karen Fawcett,Paul Double, Sharon Ropes, and Randy Schenkat
There was discussion of giving more guidance to potential subscribers
on how to sign up and post messages. Craig will utilize the extra
pages at web site to give newcomers more guidance.
A summary of survey findings will be posted sometime in the near future.
E Democracy of Minnesota , the host of WoD, is losing its free
server and are raising funds. Roy will contact them to see what the
implications are for us.
Craig reports that WOD subscribed membership is currently at 222.
We've noticed several new posters recently and appreciate your added
perspectives.
Representativeness of the list was discussed. The opinion seemed to
be that by increasing numbers we'd somewhat accomplish that end.
Also, part of the issue on representation is are discussions
hearing of the many sides. Perhaps a moderator function could be
calling that forth more. This led to the issue of knowing who
subscribes. Randy noted often on list servs it's not uncommon for
members to introduces themselves. This could be set in place for new
members and a catch up process could optionally be used for veteran
members. Kathy has some ideas on this that she'll work on.
We discussed irksome behavior on WOD. It is possible for a
"probation status" in which a person's message wouldn't go directly
to whole list.
There was a debriefing on why the Bianchi discussion didn't catch on
more. It was suggested perhaps that folks didn't see enough
connection between a private school and the more diverse public
setting. It was also offered it was summer and people might have
been fried from the previous lengthy discussion. Perhaps questions
were not articulated enough and there wasn't enough sense of some
diversity of point of view among the panelists. Regarding elected
officials participating, it seemed to be consensus given the nature
of politics often individuals don't like to step out however on the
spin off topic of site teams in schools, discussion is taking place
and comment in WOD probably has been useful. Perhaps as participants
we don't know how our voices are heard and how the discussion might
impact decisions. Randy asserted it would be reinforcing if we just
occasionally heard thanks for the "talk" or "what do others think?"
from elected officials.
We discussed media relations and the desire for a link to WOD to be
more prominent in media. We noticed Daily News has used WOD as
source for some of the Wal-Mart coverage. We had never heard a reply
back from WDN on running "A Week in Life of Winona Online Democracy"
feature. We had some small coverage on Wal-Mart story from Wis
Public Radio in LaCrosse and Erin Galbally from Minnesota Public
Radio in Rochester subscribes and is interested.
Karen Fawcett is developing a post card awareness builder for WOD.
Several good design suggestions were made at the meeting. One in
particular, from Roy, stressed recognizing the legitimate function of
listeners in WOD.
Given the busy time of summer, we decided to commemorate WOD's first
3 years some time in September perhaps in conjunction with Victorian
Fair. Sharon and Kathy are exploring some options. We settled the
photo issue with thinking of a collage- Paul's suggestion. Martha
Greenwald has volunteered her digital photography and editing. Kathy
will be thinking of a Top 10 Reasons list to promote our Face to Face
meeting of veterans from WOD and possible new members.
The group was pleased that Forest joined us as we've not had a strong
youth presence in WOD. He offered that he learned of WoD by a
presentation in Dwayne Voegeli's class. Randy suggested doing more
student class presentations this fall. Forest noted what interested
him initially is that a youth issue was being talked about in WOD.
Because of needs to make plans for the Face to Face event, the
steering committee will meet again in one month. The date is Monday
August 25th from 4-5:30 pm in the Heritage Room of City Hall.
--
Randy Schenkat 1358 Skyline Dr. Winona, Mn 55987 507-452-7168
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