[Winona Online Democracy]
Greetings Everyone,
Some of you may remember me . . . I was part of the original effort to get W.O.D. off the ground and served as the List Manager for the first few years of its existence before stepping down to serve on the School Board and then leaving town for three years to attend school. I'm back in Winona now and have agreed to return as List Manager - and give Roy a well-deserved break after his offer to take over for 3 months turned into 3 years. I'd like to thank him for all his efforts during that time. Well, it's been a little quiet around here lately . . but exciting plans are afoot. A relaunch of Winona Online Democracy is being planned for next month. With the new "Winona Online Democracy 2.0" we will be trying some new and interesting things to reinvigorate our local discussion and expand participation within the community. As part of the relaunch we are working with Minnesota E-Democracy to upgrade our technology by moving our discussion to a new platform. Hosting our discussion on their "Groupserver" will make everything easier to use and provide you with more options to participate in different ways. If you want to see what the new "homepage" and archives will look like, you can visit the St. Paul Issues Forum< http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/stpaul-issues/> More information about this will be sent out over the coming weeks. We plan to complete the switch by the end of June. You will be invited to the new service when it is set up. The invitation will include a link that will take you to the registration page where you'll be able to register with the new system and join in on the reinvigorated discussion of local issues. Despite the fact that WOD has been very quiet over the past year, it has been and will continue to be a vital place in our community where people can come together to discuss local issues in a thorough and constructive way. Rather than let it fade away, we invite you to join in its renewal by moving to the new system or being a part of the team that will bring it back to life. If you'd like to participate in the planning, just send me an email and I'll have you added to the Steering Committee email list. To kick off the relaunch, we are planning what should be an interesting workshop on "Citizen Media & Journalism, Web 2.0 in Winona, and the Community Issues Forum." This will be presented in conjunction with E-Democracy.Org on the evening of June 18th at the Winona City Hall. We will be bringing in some interesting speakers who have been successfully doing online community engagement using these newer technologies -- more on that later. In the meantime, if you have any comments, concerns or suggestions about the future of Winona Online Democracy, please feel free to share them with the list or send them to me directly. Thanks again for your participation! Steve Kranz -- Steve Kranz 338 Pleasant Hill Dr. Winona, MN 55987 507.474.0985 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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