Six Months Into My Vista

As I sit here looking at my things to do and my calendar I've realized that its just just about six months into my VISTA -ship already. Wow, times really flown. There certainly have been a lot of obstacles that my organization has been facing in the six months I have been here including funding, moving locations, and a few other internal matters. We've still been working through things and doing what we can do though. I've been doing my share in helping to write out certain areas of our strategic plan mainly focusing on ways to implement better community involvment and awareness in the technology/broadband policy debate. I also wrote a letter of inquiry for grant not too long ago but haven't heard anything about that so far. Right now I'm also organizing our "Meet the Funder" event that will provide community organizations to hear from grantmakers, get the scope of the grantmaking and grantwriting process and just ask general questions on the grant proccess.  …read more

So whats been going on at CTOC (community technology organizing consortium) since I started my Vista-ship back in November? Well, from November to the beginning of January I spent a lot of the time doing outreach for a Holiday event we held. That turned out to be a bit of a flop on attendance and I did feel like a bit of a failure to my organization but I got over it. I realized the causes of low attendannce were various...new event location, holiday season, etc. It was my first few weeks on the job so I wasn't too hard on myself. As soon as that was over we got a call from CTCNet to help with outreach for the Los Angeles institutes, as they were lacking in registration.  So the week and a half long tasks of phone calls, e-mails, and e-vites began again. This turned out to be much much better. The CTCNet institute was quite interesting and informative. Unlike many of the CTCVista's I lack in being "tech savvy" so I never realized the capabilities of various software components and its ability to provide access to the disabled.  …read more

This PSO is definately better than the corporation's PSO.  Great to meet everyone!