Community businesses - like their for
profit equivalents - need to communicate locally and globally. Kay
Caldwell of the National Network of Community Business explains how
the benefits of the Internet became apparent. She wrote this article
in 1997.
We were immediate converts from technophobia to technophilia on
discovering the value of e-mail to our staff when organising an
international conference. The ease of communication, the low cost and
the fact that people on the other side of the world could communicate
with us during our night time and their day time - effectively
allowing us to work around the clock- all combined to make us wonder
how we had lived without our modems for so long.
The Network exists to provide an exchange of information between
groups, individuals and councils who are involved in community
business development. Members receive from us regular mailings giving
the details of projects, kinds of trading activities and support
services, with the aim of encouraging exchange of information and
advice between them. These are costly in preparation time and postage
and require storage on receipt.
The opportunity to have our own web-site where all of this
information could be stored and displayed and accessed by members at
the touch of a button was welcomed, and we instructed Internation
Ltd. to design us a site. The information on members is in the
process of being completed and we have an electronic membership form
on the site too, through which we have recruited some new members. A
selection of articles from the current issue of our magazine, New
Sector, can also be accessed.(Paper mailings will still continue, of
course.)
A new feature designed for us on the same site by Internation Ltd. is
the Readers' Forum whereby members or other readers can initiate
debate, carry out conversations or advertise events.
The key benefit of the Internet to us, however, may be about to be
realised. The Network is a member of COMMACT, the Commonwealth
Association for Local Action and Economic Development whose Governing
Council members belong to every Commonwealth Region. The cost of even
an annual meeting of these people travelling from different parts of
the world is all but prohibitive, but using a programme specially
created on Internet for us by Internation we shall be able to have
regular, inexpensive "meetings". The Interactive Meeting Service,
when set up, will allow all of the Governing Council members with
access to modems - from the Caribbean to Africa - to link up for
meetings across the Net. COMMACT may be the first, but will certainly
not be the only network, to make use of this service.
The National Network of Community Business has its website at
http://www.internation.co.uk/network/
Internation Ltd. has its website at http://www.internation.co.uk/
www.partnerships.org.uk/articles/nncs1.html