Re: Communications

["K. Loberg" <loberg@adelphia.net>]

    I think one problem may be, when you are on the AIS main web page, if 
you are a new person, you have to guess as to where to find local club 
information.   I might not have known that AIS Regions is the place to go. 
I tried Iris Links, which gives me further links to "Iris Societies", "AIS 
Regions", and "AIS Local Clubs", but each of these links is incomplete.   I 
could miss a local club close to me if I were search through those 3 links, 
as they do not adequately show all local affiliates with contact 
information, and I could very well assume they don't exist.   The first link 
to "AIS Regions" does take you to a list of region information, and from 
there to lists of affiliates.   I do know that our Region 14 information is 
now very current, as a recent effort was made to update our affiliate 
contact information.  But, from this region list and the affiliate list, 
there is no published link to our Region 14 web site, which would guide 
California inquiries to so much more information on what is going on within 
our State.   And from Regions there are no published links to some of our 
local clubs which also have web sites.

     So I think my observations are that some redesign and consideration of 
how the AIS information is made available could be re-visited and improved. 
I agree with you Bob, that it is extremely valuable to have that local 
contact information available for re-direction of interested parties and 
inquiries.   Having it easily available on the web is nearly instantaneous 
and will save a lot of other people's time in routing to contact points 
which might be inadequate or unavailable.

     I do think there is a great amount of very important information on the 
AIS web page, and it has taken a great amount of effort to get to where we 
are, and I thank John and Chris and anyone else who has contributed to what 
we currently have.   But as with any publication, electronic or printed, 
evaluation of how things are being presented, brainstorming on improvements, 
and implementation of the best ideas can only help AIS.    Ten years ago 
people would not have thought the AIS web page was important, but today 
there should be no doubt as to it's importance.   If I may, I suggest that 
the role of electronic services be expanded to include other capable 
web-literate people throughout AIS, who can evaluate design and make 
suggestions for improvements, and help implement them.    Our current AIS 
bulletin has 5 people published who perform critical roles.   I believe our 
electronic services should be heading in this direction.



"It would be reasonable to query the RVPs in the summer and fall for 
updates. Trying to contact each Affiliate is beyond the scope of what 
Electronic Services can do."



John, I am really, really glad to know that a lot of the affiliate 
information is finally updated. I appreciate that. But I do not understand 
why this is beyond the scope of electronic services.   As you know, as 
reported at several of our R14 regionals, Bill Coyle with our Scholarship 
committee is generating automated fax/emails to a huge number of high 
schools and colleges in our region, and it has increased our scholarship 
responses tremendously.   I don't see the difficulty of contacting 
affiliates electronically.  I just think the scope of electronic services. 
the "Team", needs to be expanded to include more capable people and people 
with time.  I know I have never been asked.

Kitty Loberg

Region 14 Webmaster

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