PROPOSALS

[Joseph Mansilla]

Dear Excellent GYAC-N Friends,

Now that we, GYAC-N representatives at the 14IACC, are all back home, we are now getting busy writing our reports on the conference and turning what we learned into action with our respective organizations and involvements. But before that, I have two proposals I want to present to all of you:

1. AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER

On the last day of the IACC, we drafted a Bangkok Declaration of Young People and invited the conference participants to sign it (I announced it on Twitter, but since our booth was in a rather isolated part of the conference venue, we had to "bring the mountains to Mohammad," as the saying goes. Also, I am still quite upset that we were not allowed to read our Declaration at the closing ceremonies, but that's for another blog post.)

Now, we got quite a number of names and signatures, but what do we do about and WITH these people who believed in us and signed our declaration?

I suggest that we send bi-weekly or monthly updates to these people and to our GYAC-N members through e-mail newsletters. I volunteer to be in-charge of this. Let's do this by consolidating the latest posts here on Ning, and construct in a concise newsletter what we are all up to, and it could include calls for logistical assistance, funding, or anything! The network and website are BY us and FOR us, but it need not be limited to us because we certainly need the help of a broader, international network, and guess what, we have the e-mail addresses of some of them! We have already established a strong physical presence at the IACC, now let's create an even stronger online, virtual presence!!

So, what are your thoughts on this?

2. AN UPDATED NING HOMEPAGE

My first proposal inevitably leads me to this second one. I think that we need someone (a web designer) to update our Ning homepage because it is currently too convoluted, in my opinion. Our strength relies on the fact that we are (currently) 50-strong young people from all over the world who are committed to the fight against corrupted and are thus excited to tell the world about our respective involvements, and the website is not optimized for this. For example, the IACC just ended, and we posted quite a lot about it here on Ning, but very few of these updates are now visible on the website homepage, and I am sure that a lot of people have yet to read it. If these recent, important updates are not on the homepage, then they run the risk of being NOT read at all. I suggest, then, that:

a. we have a longer 'blog post' section
b. we have RSS links for those who want to subscribe to the website (something we MUST encourage)
c. we use Google Analytics to track and analyze our website visitors, if we're not doing this yet.

Once you agree on the work that needs to be done on the website and we find someone who could do it, I am willing to work with him or her on the changes that I believe the website needs, with close consultation with all of you, of course.

Let me know what you think. Meanwhile, I'll be uploading some videos.


From Manila and together against corruption,

Joseph

[pauline wanja]

Yes ! Joseph , i agree with the email newsletter, been too wondering what we do with the names and emails from this people, i am sure most cannot keep up with us on our ning site, but a newsletter would do, but what exactly goes to the newsletter, a compilation of blogs and events posted on the ning site???

[Joseph Mansilla]

Pauline, yes. That's the plan.