2001 Kappa Kappa Psi Communications Committee Report
Be it known that our committee was charged with the following:
1. Make all present aware that this is a discussion group.
2. Read and review the 2000 Communications Committee Report and Charges.
Attendance at this year’s “Comm-Comm” meeting was outstanding and everyone had a plethora of ideas to suggest to the “wellment” of District-wide communication. The aforementioned charges were discussed, save for the DITS, or District Information Technology Survey. The DITS was, well, MIA for this year’s convention, although the committee discussed all aspects of the survey and felt that it with the increased level of technology around the district, it would be redundant for this committee to address chapter webpages and university technology.
The committee discussed the option of a more permanent URL for the NCD webpage. Committee advisor, Mark “Coondog” Bradbourne, suggested that the NCDAA sponsor the URL www.ncd.org for permanent use by the District.
Also discussed was the need for more NCD Webslingers, and the creation of an ad-hoc committee for suggestions and maintenance of the NCD pages. This charge was yielded to the jurisdiction committee. Suggestions by the committee for the NCD webpage included a bulletin board method of posting and receiving messages without having to subscribe to the NCD listserv, online profiles or lists of NCD chapter officers, and creating deadlines for NCD webpage updates (more often than once a decade).
In regard to individual chapter homepages, we decided that while most chapters currently have sites, there are aspects that can be improved. Such possible problems include changing of chapter webslingers, updating the page on a somewhat-regular basis, and improving the “user-friendliness” of a page. Our solution is to create a Communications Workshop that would be a part of Leadership, the Block Meetings, or both. We believe that this workshop would help improve the quality of the current pages, as well as serve as a start-up tutorial for the few chapters that do not have a site currently up and running.
As for the NCD listserv…. While for the most part the listserv has not been abused, there have been some complaints regarding the original intentions of the NCD listserv, resulting in miscommunication amongst chapters, decreased use by the “quieter” subscribers, and many valuable ideas not posted to this list. We had several solutions this problem. First of all, the creation of a moderated listserv would assist chapter corresponding secretaries in getting dates of events from other chapters as well as keeping everyone on task and business-oriented. These moderated and unmoderated listservs would function similarly to the National moderated and unmoderated lists. Also suggested was the option of a digest format for sending messages, so that the amount of district email can be summed up in one daily message rather than the receiving ten-hundred email messages a day.
Another major discussion ensued about the roles of the sponsors and how to increase communication between sponsors from other chapters, as well as within the home -chapter. The proposed idea was to have a District-wide or Block-wide sponsor luncheon or event so sponsors can get ideas and feedback from their counterparts.
Another suggestion was for chapter officers to meet with their sponsor(s) for breakfast to discuss the current goings on in the chapter.
Lastly, the committee went off on so many tangents and began to discuss many excellent ideas for their chapter issues. At this point I was lost, which led me to yielding the floor to everyone present.
The charges for next year’s Comm-Comm are as follows:
1. Make all present and aware that this is a discussion group.
I would like to thank all those who sat in on our committee discussions for your thoughts, ideas, and solutions, and some special thanks to Mark Bradbourne for advising (and talking A LOT), and to current NCD Webslinger, Brian Shaw.
Respectfully Submitted,
Brooke S. Nelson, Chair, Alpha Zeta
Matt Denman, Beta Kappa
Bill Fritze, Zeta Epsilon
Brianna Gunnell, Zeta Epsilon
Greg Hermann, Epsilon Xi
Mary Ana Price, Sigma