Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Bayne Street Community Operations

The Bayne Street Project has now entered actual field or community operations. Blog entries will be weekly or daily depending on what is actually happening in the community. Orangeburg is a small town. Therefore, our starting and operational cost will be lower than a group organizing in a major city.

Plus, we may not have as many people connected to the Internet as you might have in New York City or Paris, France. More people already online in large cities gives Ad Hoc Committes in those areas an advantage we don't have in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

Nevertheless, there will be challenges to overcome regardless of where your Committee is located. These blogs were established to show anyone how to organize his/her neighborhood so that he/she can help himself/herself; as well as, help his/her friends and neighbors meet the rising cost of living by taking advantage of programs and/or opportunities that will help all participants.


Meeting Updates

March 16, 2008

On March 16, 2008, Otis Harrison, Edward C. Graham and George Sistrunk met at the Huddle House restaurant on Calhoun Drive in Orangeburg, South Carolina to discuss operational logistics and ways to successfully implement and improve the Bayne Street Project. It was acknowledged that all of us owe a debt of gratitude to Lorraine Primrose for coming up with this idea.

Otis Harrison suggested the flyers be community specific. That is, each flyer would target specific areas of Orangeburg based on a street or well known landmark. For example, his flyers would have Downtown Orangeburg, rather than Bayne Street. This idea was adopted and would be presented to Madame Chair for approval.

Otis Harrison also suggested removing Business Development and replacing it with Neighbor Helping Neighbor. He reasoned that this would remove any commercial orientation, make the project more community oriented; plus, (according to Otis Harrision) this would best identify what we are actually doing in our neighborhoods and the Orangeburg community at large. This idea was also adopted and would be presented to Madame Chair for approval.

Edward C. Graham suggested that we focus on the importance of being connected to the Internet, rather than just having a computer or access to a computer. His reason: Many people might have computers that are not Internet ready; while others might have computers that are not connected to the Internet at all. These language changes were adopted and would be presented to Madame Chair for approval.

Edward C. Graham also suggested putting each person's name and phone number on the flyers as a contact person, especially if a committee member actually lives in the neighborhood. This idea was adopted and would be presented to Madame Chair for approval.

Otis Harrison suggested putting a definite time period to call, so Madame Chair could schedule her day accordingly. Members whose phone numbers would be on their flyers would also have a definite time period to be ready for and handle calls. This idea was adopted and would be presented to Madame Chair for approval.

George Sistrunk suggested completing all the links and giving each person that has his/her links completed the responsibility of getting links from the others and giving the links to him so he can put them on the signup blog. Blog link generators do not open links in new windows.

Therefore, he had to insert the code for that manually and it is time consuming for each individual link. He suggested putting everything in at once, then all he would have to do is go back and insert individual IDs, rather than insert individual IDs and the code. This idea was adopted and would be presented to Madame Chair for approval.

The target date for actual operations to begin would be changed from Monday, March 17, 2008 to Monday, March 24, 2008. This would give us time to get approvals from Madame Chair, make any changes she suggests, alter concepts she did not approve of and get the final flyer copy to Sir Speedy Printing.


Monday, March 17, 2008

At approximately 9:30 a.m., George Sistrunk contacted Madame Chair and presented her the ideas that were discussed in the Sunday meeting. She approved the ideas, langauge changes and start date. He also stated he had decided to leave Balck Planet for personal and business reasons.

Madame Chair stated that our objective at social networking websites is to make contact and introduce as many people as possible to Bayne Street's family concepts. She would set up a page at Black Planet and continue making contact with intelligent or interested others. George agreed to stay a little longer.

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