Minutes of 05/20/09

Approved 06/17/09

Committee members Bill Tappen, Selectman Bob Holden, Lucy Edwards, Ken Curley and Bob Young were present. IT Contractor Pete Jones attended. Our guest was Steve Robert, the Technology Director for the Northwood School District.  Kevin Ash was unable to make the meeting.

The meeting was called to order at 7:07pm by Chair Bill Tappan.

The minutes of the April meeting were accepted unanimously.

Steve Robert attended at the invitation of the chair to tell us about Alert Now, the system the school uses for communication with the public.  This system, which is also used by the Strafford School, is an application which allows quick notification to concerned parties of urgent news.  The software is totally web based plus being accessible by phone.  The school successfully used the system in the ice storm last December.   Different groups can be set up, such as sports teams, clubs, staff, students, etc.   The system is completely automated once set up, and Mr. Robert and others at the school can send messages out to groups either on line or by any phone. 

The committee discussed how it could be of use to the town, but did not come up with any recommendations at this time.

Next was a discussion of combining the school and town networks. The school board has expressed interest in exploring this.  Bob Young noted that historically they have been separate governments and have acted independently.  Steve Robert noted that in his exploration of who else might have done this, the only one he could find was Londonderry, who almost combined their networks and then saw some potential problems and now collaborate on some projects but do not share a network.

Bill Tappen suggested that sharing resources and equipment could be beneficial.  He also may have a source of free equipment for such a project.  Mutual backups might be a good use or sharing web capabilities.  If all the town departments who now have their own websites, plus the school and main town site, were put under one roof and had one person who maintained and updated them, it would be a cost savings and improve the performance of the sites as great sources of information for the whole town.  It was noted that the problems in other towns have been the feeling the other party is getting a better deal (economic politics), and poor management. 

Steve Robert noted that the question to explore is: what are the wants and needs of each side?  Pete Jones thinks we have a ways to go at the town hall before we would be ready to even start thinking about this. 

Bob Holden asked us to vote to write a letter to the board of selectmen asking for their comments on the idea.  This was approved unanimously. 

Pete Jones reported that he was working on the data organization project, and exploring other options for off-site backup, since the data is outgrowing the tapes.  Another project would be archiving old data, but Pete does not know enough about the actual data to do this without information from town employees as to what they currently use.

There was a discussion of what the websites for the town and school should be able to provide.  It was agreed that the software was adequate, the school is now using the same set up as the town. Keeping the sites up to date must be made a priority.  Mr. Holden stated that the residents want the town web site to be the main resource for information, forms, public records, etc. and he is committed to supporting that.

Kevin Ash agreed at our last meeting to provide input regarding the website but due to a last minute change in schedule could not attend this meeting.

The committee plans to discuss the website in depth at the next meeting on June 17th.

The meeting adjourned at 8:43 pm.

Respectfully Submitted,
 Lucy Edwards