Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 04:24:55 -0400 To: "reuse list" From: Dave Butler Subject: Re: Meeting reminder At 04:52 AM 9/10/99 -0400, John Zelson wrote: >hey, just a reminder that we're meeting on Friday, lunchtime. I'm picking >up Faith, but have room for others if you need a ride... Computer Recyclers of the Reuse Collaborative: Greetings from Dave Butler! I'm hoping to see you all at Fred Simon's place around noon today. As for the rest of the gang at Nonprofit Technology Resources, I think Stan was planning to make it -- as of a few days ago. I don't know whether NTR's VISTAs, Leora Oliver and Reggie Mosely, are planning to attend -- I'll try to remind them. For those of you who are new to Reuse, and those who haven't heard from me in a while, here is my updated brief history. I helped John Zelson (of the Corp for National Service) and NTR Director Stan Pokras get the project rolling back in 1996 when I was a very active NTR volunteer and occasional contract teacher. For more about the early days, check out NTR's web page, History of the Philadelphia Reuse Collaborative In 1997 and 1998 I worked for the Energy Coordinating Agency, and continued to volunteer a little time for the Reuse planning process. In March of 1999 I returned to NTR as a paid Technical Support Specialist, refurbishing hardware, teaching classes in hardware and software, and training VISTA staff. Last fall NTR moved from spacious quarters at 1600 Arch to its present hole in the wall at 1508 Brandywine. Hundreds of machines, mostly 286 and 386 PC, some monitors and some Apples, ended up in storage space donated by the Lighthouse and Mars Hill Baptist Church. Many of these machines were cast aside, whole or in pieces, by John and me back in 1997 after stumping our experts. Many have lost their system setup info as their batteries are dead. But a lot of usable equipment remained, which NTR was offering to donate to Mars Hill. Mars Hill's Assistant Pastor, Rev Quick, had assembled a 12-station computer lab and begun teaching computer classes to children and adults. But as of this spring there were no concrete plans for the rest of the equipment. This spring Stan asked me repay a kindness by teaching a hardware class or two at Mars Hill -- the church is at Ninth and Lehigh -- and try to place a few of those machines with needy folks in that community. I met with Rev Quick and toured his facilities. I saw great potential in the resources at Mars Hill, and quickly decided I should do more than teach a class or two. I suggested that if Quick could recruit a half dozen volunteers for three hours on Saturdays, I could train a few in the art of turning crud into gold. These volunteers could each earn a computer to take home and we should be able to rebuild many more which we could distribute to neighborhood children. There was no way NTR could pay me to put in a lot of hours here, but I volunteered to work at least four Saturdays in May and June if the church would help me launch a volunteer program to refurbish computers. Leora Oliver, who joined NTR this spring as a VISTA Hardware Technician, volunteered to work with me at Mars Hill and after our four Saturdays, we went for six more before taking the month of August to relax. The crew of half a dozen which I had envisioned swelled to dozens after a neighborhood paper picked up the story that Mars Hill was giving away free computers! We had our hands full just directing traffic! My rosy predictions of happy computers turned to an endless procession of not-found hard drives, inaccessible BIOS setup programs, boot sector viruses, and dead batteries. I researched viruses on the internet. I tried most of the freeware and shareware virus checkers I could find, and slowly worked my way up to the higher priced products. Not until near the end of the program did I find virus checkers (Norton and McAfee) that would clean most of the viruses. These require one or two MB of RAM -- I'm still stumped for one that will work on a 640K system but I think it's time to let those go peacefully anyway! By August we had fallen short of my hopes, placing less than two dozen computers, some to children and some to volunteers. On Wed Aug 18 we held a first meeting at Mars Hill of volunteers interested in helping to plan a technology program for Mars Hill. We needed to decide what our program's goals should be, and figure out how best to use our available resources. One thing we agreed upon was a need for working capital. We came up with a couple fund-raising ideas. One is to sell several dozen Lion of Africa t-shirts which Dave inherited from a former t-shirt mogul. Another fund-raising idea came from Irv Shannon of the Harmonious Volunteer Center, a Philadelphia nonprofit org. Irv has been one of Mars Hill's most active volunteers through much of the program, and has joined the planning group. Mars Hill's volunteers will sell $10 tickets for a Shopping Benefit (15% off) Wed October 6 at Bloomingdale's of King of Prussia. The $10 ticket price will go directly to Mars Hill. For each ticket redeemed, Bloomingdale's will donate $5 to the Harmonious Volunteer Center. Attention Bloomie's shoppers! I've got tickets for you! The next meeting at Mars Hill is scheduled for 1pm Wed Sept 15. I'll be out of town that week but I'm hoping that the show will go on without me! Rev Quick has had his hands full trying to supply computers to the children in his programs. This week the church's van was in the shop but he managed to round up a pickup truck and a helper to collect a pile of antique equipment that was taking up space at NTR. We have plenty of work ahead of us at Mars Hill! A lot of the machines in Mars Hill's basement will have to be relocated so that repairs can be made in an area damaged by fire a couple years ago. While NTR has limited resources to support Mars Hill's program, Stan is eager to see Mars Hill benefit from NTR's equipment donations. And Stan has offered NTR's help in the drafting of funding proposals if Mars Hill's planning group can put together a workable plan for a technology program. I have suggested that the Mars Hill program should no longer stress the idea of distributing equipment to volunteers, but try to recruit additional expert volunteers and rely on the motivation of placing computers with needy children. I've suggested that Mars Hill should resume weekly Saturday hardware sessions in late Sept and allowed that I'd try to attend on alternate Saturdays, at least. Attendance will be limited to our planning group and a very few others, until we get better organized. Here are some other ideas that I've proposed, or will propose, for Mars Hill. Mars Hill has a strong program selling affordable meals in their spacious kitchen and dining area. Perhaps the tech program and the meal program could complement one another. The tech program could sell tickets as a fund-raiser. For each ticket redeemed, the tech program would reimburse the meal program. Tickets sold but not redeemed would mean cash to the tech program. If the meal program can afford to redeem tickets at less than retail, that will mean more cash for tech program. If the tech program's sales force means more business for the kitchen, both programs could benefit from the lower costs associated improved efficiency of bulk operations and purchases. Various prices could apply for Lunch and Dinner, Adult, Child or Budget Special. I'd like to negotiate some kind of Budget Special that would be cheap enough that people could buy a strip of coupons to give away to the homeless and hungry. There have been similar efforts in Phila, how successful I don't know, to encourage city folks to donate food coupons rather than cash to panhandlers. Mars Hill should join the Reuse Collaborative -- we're all in the same boat! Mars Hill should seek one or more strong partner orgs besides NTR, to complement its tech program. Valuable partners might include orgs which could provide teachers or lesson plans, orgs with experience in volunteer management, orgs focusing on job skill development. Did I forget to mention proposal writing and fund-raising? Too much of the burden today is falling on Rev Quick, and I am trying to make sure it doesn't all fall on me! Quick is Mars Hill's only Computer Teacher, Computer Fixer and Computer Mover. He would love to turn over the task of teaching computer classes and running a tech center to an org like NTR. But NTR's mission is not so much to run tech centers as to support orgs that do. NTR is a small org which is constantly forging new partnerships to develop small programs, many of which combine NTR's technical resources with the specialized skills of community orgs which provide housing assistance, job training and other educational services. I guess that's it for the Mars Hill update. I look forward to hearing ideas from Reuse Collaborative members on how Mars Hill might proceed. I've added to my web site a button marked NTR Staff. Here you'll find assorted notes relating to our work of reusing donated computers. Some of my online auction and shopping sources are here, as well as my current work in progress, the beginning of a web page coding lesson -- I'm teaching Leora and Reggie how to write web pages so that they can update NTR's site with the latest and greatest news about Learning Through Technology and other NTR offerings! Did I give you that URL? My web site is called Dave Butler's Rainforest Cottage at GeoCities and it's at http://www.geocities.com/~mister_dave/ On Saturday I expect to start a week of camping (tent and/or motel depending upon various comfort factors), just me and my sweetheart, driving toward Ricketts Glen (I swam and hiked there once long ago) and then west to the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania (never been there). Okay, I'll probably see you at noon, but I better get some sleep! Dave ___________________________________________________ Dave Butler PO Box 34120 Phila PA 19101-4120 215-849-5311 dbut@erols.com AIM: dbut53 http://www.geocities.com/~mister_dave ICQ# 3263902 Community Technology Center Teacher and Advisor day 215-564-6686 Nonprofit Technology Resources http://www.libertynet.org/ntr