Q's - kalmia, etc? recognize board with volunteers, staff because they are on front lines, for recognition. worth to community basin, vc Good evening. I'm Neal McBurnett, president of the board, and I'd like to welcome you to the 6th anniversary celebration of Boulder Community Network. As most of you know, a non-profit organization like ours would be unable to host an evening like this without the support of some very generous sponsors so please let me take a moment to thank them publicly. [list them, biggest first, point to the tables]. include CU, camera, liquor mart, etc. Lets give them a hand! I'll be back in a little while to tell you just a bit about BCN and what your participation means. And now, please enjoy your dinner! ----------- [after dinner] I promised my fellow board members to be brief and so I'm just going to take a few minutes to tell you all a little about BCN and why our theme for this evening is "Technology Serving Community." Because actually, technology serving community is what BCN is all about not just this evening, not just today, but for all evenings. And every day. When we formed BCN in 1993 all we really knew was that this thing called the "Internet" was going to become a powerful agent of change and that somehow we needed to help harness that power for the good of local communities. Well, we all know how much about our world the Internet has changed and while our organization hasn't grown quite as fast, we have done some of what we set out to do. And don't get nervous I'm only going to tell you a little of what we've accomplished in the last year not the last six. Many of you know that one of our priorities is putting lots of great local content on the web. In fact, there are hundreds of local non-profits that we host online for free. This year we put up two big new ones. Virtual Chautauqua is .... Basin is.... huge site... 900 MB The content these groups develop is at the heart of online communities and I invite you to go to the site and see for yourself how rich and diverse the results are. We also focus on education, and we made a great hit with the orientation classes we offered this year, especially for Seniors. Our TekMatch program provides a broad range of technology help to non-profits for a very low fee, and the opportunities in this area will continue to increase. Now I'd like to introduce the people that really make all this happen. (With all due respect don't these people get paid for their work? It frankly seems weird to me to be thanking them for doing their jobs Maybe you want to say they've done more? Or how about just introduce Joelle, the new ED?) First, our staff - please stand up! Our new Executive Director, Joelle Bonnett, Our Volunteer Coordinator, Jim Harrington, and our two Operations Assistants Karen Kos & Sean Sidelko. Lets give them a hand! The University of Colorado technical staff provides excellent support for our computers - please stand and be recognized. And of course, the backbone of any non-profit organization is its volunteers. I'd like ours to please stand and accept our deep gratitude for designing the web sites, teaching classes, working with local non-profits, serving on the board, and doing all the other things you do that make BCN what it is. But of course it also takes money to run an organization. We think we leverage that money very well. BCN's web server handles 25,000 page hits a day. Imagine printing out that many pages of paper or taking that many phone calls. And our volunteers donate thousands of hours worth xxxx to the community each year. The coming year will be an important one for fundraising. In the past we've won some very competitive grants, but they are wrapping up and we will need to transition to new forms of support. As one new avenue, we have joined the Community Shares organzation which allows you to donate via payroll donation. Please encourage your employers to offer Community Shares and look for us during the campaign this fall. We can't keep doing our work without you. Thank you. [And now, to introduce our special guest is (Catherine .?)] As an organization with "community" and "network" in it title, it is hard to think of anyone we'd more like to hear from than our guest speaker tonight. Howard Rheingold has been using networks to form communities for a long time. He has written several books on the topic, including two that are coming out in second editions this year - "Tools for Thought" and "The Virtual Community". He was the editor of The Whole Earth review and editor in chief of The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog, continuing a long tradition sharing grassroots tools for communities. He also knows how to help organizations make money doing this stuff. He was the first Executive Editor of HotWired and launched Electric Minds a few years ago. We're lucky that Catherine Weldon, the second director of BCN, is a friend of his and was able to sweet-talk him into waiving his usual speaking fee. So he also qualifies as a very special contributor to BCN tonight. Please help me in welcoming Howard Rheingold. ------------ Evening closing: I'd like to thank our sponsors again, and thank you for coming. I hope you had a good time. and I hope you consider helping us out in the future, by volunteering, by donating money, and by spreading the word. Become a Friend of BCN! ------ In 1985, I became involved in the WELL, a computer conferencing system. I started writing about life in my virtual community and ended up with a book about the cultural and political implications of a new communications medium, The Virtual Community(1993 [New edition to be published by MIT Press in 2000]). I had the privilege of being the editor of The Whole Earth review and editor in chief of The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog (1994). Here's my introduction to the Catalog, my riff on Taming Technology and a selection of my own articles and reviews from both publications. In 1994, I was one of the principal architects and the first Executive Editor of HotWired. I quit after launch, because I wanted something more like a jam session than a magazine. In 1996, I founded and, with the help of a crew of 15, launched Electric Minds. I've become a professional virtual community builder, as well.