electronic village of abingdon

MINUTES

7 March 1996

A scheduled meeting of the Electronic Village of Abingdon Committee was held in the lower meeting room of the Town of Abingdon Municipal Building at 7:30 P. M. on 7 March 1996. In the absence of Dr. F. H. Moore, Jr., Chairman, Jay Cox, Vice Chairman, presided.

The first order of business was that of subcommittee reports. These reports were as follows:

Publicity Subcommittee report was given by Steve Galyean. Steve reported that a contest to design a logo for E V A had been held and was awarded to Mr. Johnathan Terry, a resident of Laramie, Wyoming. Steve further explained that the award was made by a virtual press conference over the Internet, a first to his knowledge. Steve also stated that the Principles of Technology class at Abingdon High School had been constructing signs for all of the demonstration sites and displayed one of these very nice signs to the group. Flyers have been printed for insertion into Sprint telephone bills over the next three months’ billing cycles as a direct mail promotion for E V A. These flyers detail where the demo sites are located, their hours and whether or not assistance is available there.

 

Content Subcommittee report was given by Dan Manweiler. Dan reported that the work of this committee was coming together after much long and hard work most recently by himself, Jackie Stevenson and Sue Ray King. These three are working at the Coomes Recreation Center on the design of a page for the demo sites. Sue Ray King stated that a form had been given everyone concerning assistance for these people in their work; they are in need of all levels of assistance from anyone.

 

Services and Facilities Subcommittee report was summarized by Jay Cox since Rachel Fowlkes could not attend. Rachel is sponsoring a conference of representatives of all the demo sites at the University of Virginia Higher Education Center on March 14 at 1:00 P. M. to form a calendar of events. David Taverner then took up the report from there saying that the fiber cable was in place from the Municipal Building to the Library and to the Hospital. David passed around a sample of the cable for everyone to see. T-1 service to the Municipal Building was established as well as to the High School. There had been problems with the T-1 to Virginia Highlands Community College that as yet were unresolved. ISDN services were established at the sites designated for such. All of these locations still required connecting and that work will begin next week with the Coomes Recreation Center, since that site is being used for development and testing of the home page. David noted that problems at any of the sites should be reported to Al Bradley at the Municipal Building, 628-3167, for reporting to Sprint. This way, Al will be able to determine if there were conjunctive problems at two sites, for instance, that Sprint would otherwise not be aware of.

 

"91st Day" Subcommittee report was given by Al Bradley. Al stated that the committee had held its first meeting on 27 February with a large agenda which remains uncompleted for the time being. Many of the agenda items were purely organizational in nature. The many items discussed were those of tracking the progress of the demo project using some sort of sign-in form as yet to be determined, reporting on the willingness of others to participate in a permanent E V A project that would likely be done by telephone. Plans for the fiber optic network beyond the demonstration included discussions with David Taverner of Sprint’s intentions indicating that Sprint had an interest in this type of business. The subcommittee set April 1 as a target date for Sprint’s answers on costs and a range of options for service. Al also reported that the subcommittee had wished for the Town to retain some control over E V A and that all options regarding the fiber optic network remain open at this time.

 

The known events schedules were discussed next. These included a kickoff celebration at the Coomes Recreation Center on 20 March and a Washington County Chamber of Commerce business seminar on 23 March at 9:00 A. M. about the use of the Internet. It was reported that Congressman Boucher would participate in the opening event. There were several suggestions about the opening event. Jackie Stevenson stated that these could be made to the Publicity Subcommittee at their meeting at 5:15 P. M. on 11 March at the Convention & Visitor’s Bureau.

A schedule of upcoming E V A - related meetings is as follows:

Jay Cox added two notes before the meeting was adjourned. One was the offering of classes at VHCC on navigating the Internet on Sundays at 2:00 and 4:00. These classes can be entered by calling the Community College at 628-6094. The other note was that the Washington County Public Library had done an exceptional job with its public access site and would be adding more computers to it soon. The WCPL home page was done by Matt Peltier and Joan Boone and they had even categorized URL listings for Internet sites in a system similar to the Dewey Decimal System.

The next meeting of the full Electronic Village of Abingdon Committee was set for 7:30 P. M. on 18 March, 1996 in the Municipal Building.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.

Respectfully Submitted,

Albert C. Bradley,

Secretary

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