Hi Elaine, Frances, Henry, John, Cicely, Marcus, Andy, and Nikki
Some of you know each other, some of you don't - but you will have started to know each other a bit by the time you have finished reading this. I think you will all find it helpful to have a shared picture of where Dadamac Foundation is now, regarding its use of the Internet. I will not try to do detailed people-to-people introductions, because as we work together you will learn who people are and how they fit in.
- Nikki and I plan to feature different projects in turn (at http://www.dadamac.net/foundation) gradually building up a full collection of all the projects that the Dadamac Foundation Trustees and volunteers are supporting.
- Most, but not all, of these project are connected with Fanstuam Foundation.
- In order for a project to be included it needs a local champion (people like John and Cicely and other people on the ground).
- Local champions are responsible for providing initial information (a call for action) and for continuing to give updates.
- We will make a system which is as user friendly as possible so it will be easy for the local champion to provide the information.
- Andy and Pamela have designed a prototype call for action form to capture all necessary information.
- The form gives a structure - making it easy to provide background details and ask for specific help.
- Now we need try the form out with some real information to see if it needs any tweaking before we make it 'live".
- I am going to ask Frances to look at the form next (because she has supported FF from the start, she knows it well, and she is based in the UK, so we can speak by phone).
- Frances may be able to fill in some of the forms completely - or at least get them started, thus saving the local champions some initial work.
- Marcus - given your ongoing links with Attachab etc you may like to be a champion for projects related to technology transfer and permaculture even though you are based in UK - we could discuss this by phone soon too.
- We will also decide if any of the previously supported projects should be added to the list to give a fuller picture of what FF does
- The calls for action will include background information on the projects - so they will provide an information pack for our Dadamac Ambassadors
- I will ask Elaine (our prototype ambassador - to Rotary International) for advice about that and find out if the completed forms would serve her needs as they are.
- When we are happy with the layout of the form we will ask John and Cecily to choose the first project to be featured.
- The calls for action will often be requests for money but they may be for other things too - including practical advice or help with a task.
- Each time a new project is added we will tweet about it, and ask our followers to retweet.
- Each time we tweet about a new project we will also tweet about Dadamac Foundation in general and how people can get involved
- We hope this will attract more volunteers
- Henry - as someone completely new to Dadamac I hope you find it useful to be included in this email. I hope you will help me to design appropriate ways to welcome new people and and see how they can easily feel at home with us and how we best help them to create a role that will be win-win for them and for Dadamac. We will talk by Skype or phone soon.
I am sending this to you individually and also publishing it on my blog, so it will be easy to share with other people later (such as during the next UK-Nigeria meeting, or when we get new volunteers). Obviously we will be following up "through the usual channels" but if you want to add to the published version you can add a comment under the blog post.
Pamela