OVERVIEW

Belgrade is a good candidate for a community schooling project (teaching the entire community). The overall plan which will involve the City, the Library, the County, schools, State of Montana, many of the NPO's, for-profits and many citizens. The project is to create a large network of supporting organizations and individuals who, together, can create a vibrant educational and community outreach facility, staffed some public employees and with volunteers from all walks of life. One goal is to support this project with public and private resources (money, property, staffing). A strong knowledge ethic needs to be found and nourished in the community members and especially at the officialdom level. Another goal is to empower those who are interested, with valuable skills, especially learning skills, so that their participation in governance is increased and their compensation level is increased. The goal is to “pull” folks toward a high quality of life.

ATTRIBUTES
Here are some attributes which are either currently possible or in the making for near-term deployment:

Wi-Fi and Wi-MAX.
Extend Internet services to the community through the use of Wi-MAX (30 mile radius) on a subscription basis. Broadband Internet service should be considered as just another utility-- same as roads, drinking water and wastewater. A private-public partnership should be formed to make this subscription-based wireless utility available to all residents of the greater Belgrade area.

Super Wi-MAX.
When available, extend Internet services to the wider community via Super Wi-Max (100 mile radius).

Kiosks.
Expand Web services through the placement of computer kiosks in public and semi-public locations (banks, markets, gas stations, fire station, city hall, larger restaurants, library and schools). The cost and support for these kiosks would be supported by the organization which houses the kiosk.

Outreach.
Create a Community Schooling fan kit which can be distributed in hard copy as well as over the Web. This outreach kit is more than just a PR outreach effort. It invites each user to become a registered member of the Belgrade Community Schooling Project with defined gift levels, rewards and volunteer opportunities.

An example is the “telephone (and Web) tree” which fosters individual connections among the members on an exponential scale. Addressing the “digital divide”, Evaluation of the Interaction of Context, Process and Outcomes of the Internet Satellite Project makes its case; see the end note. i

WikiWeb.
Create a Wiki Web for the project with pages for each major participant. Append to the WikiWeb, an email client, a group calendar, a forum and a chat room. Online courses for elementary, secondary, higher eduction and adult eduction can be taken in real time or downloaded for later use. Many free courses are available from repositories. Also ebooks will be available. Real and virtual town meeting. Create an on-going town meeting. This hosted forum allows all community members to write their views, post them and invite comments on an asynchronous basis. Once a month (or so), a synchronous town meeting via the Web can offer speakers on critical subjects in real time and which forum can take questions and comments from the audience. These meetings can be both physical as well as online and by telephone.

Arts and entertainment; multi-media studio. upport home-grown arts and entertainment.

As an example, support the creation of a high tech multi-media studio at the high school which is open to all producers. Scale the rental costs according to the intended end product, e.g. for producing a commercial program; the charges would be based on the fair market rental value. This studio can become self-supporting with this approach. If the school will not house the operation, then the Library should house the operation. This studio will have an in-house performance stage and can also do outside production (e.g., sports and community events). Create online experiences.

Online events.

Create online events, e.g. educational courses, contests, documentaries (e.g., school class travels to an event, gives a performance). Supporting community events is critical to the success of the project. A favorite choice is to particpate in a “group”, such as Yahoo Groups, or a forum attached to a website. An example of the types of exchanges is Robert's Thesis: Robert on Nancy's Responses to Kat: A parent's point of view in the endnote. ii Partners. Co-venture with other organizational members to support public charities, e.g., the Gallatin Community Food Bank, in mutual fund raising events. Every member is a potential partner. Many of our residents are high order thinkers and doers. We can foresee these folks teaching the rest of the community what they know and and how to learn on their own. Streaming media. Create streaming web-casts (audio and video) in support of community events, such as a live broadcast of a parade, sporting event, poetry reading or musical performance. These can also be archived and downloaded 7/24.

Virtual community.

To aid in the planning for specific sub-projects which implement the overall plan, virtual communities or projects can be created and viewed in 3D using free virtual reality software. Avatars can also be added as tour guides which can respond to specific questions. Governance. Create an inter-governmental entity to exercise joint powers with broad representation. If not, then create a 501.c.3 community foundation of all of the stakeholders. Governance should be broadly democratic. HOLISTIC APPROACH Holistic Management – the whole: “Holistic Management replaces fragmentary decision making and short-term solutions with a platform that encompasses the whole process of managing healthy land [or enterprise].” iiihttp://www.holisticmanagement.org/new_site_05/What/W1_what_is.htm

Holistic Goals.

A holistic approach is needed to create and manage a successful community foundation and a community schooling project. Also know as thinking outside the box or the big tent approach, the more innovative ideas, the better. We have to “see” what we intend to build before we raise the money, labor and hit the start button. If we want the majority of folks in the entire community to support the project, the must be brought in at the planning stage. The holistic approach promotes the establishment of goals such as:

Quality of Life– An expression of the way people want their lives, in this particular whole, to be, and what they ultimately want to accomplish together, based upon what they value most;

Forms of Production– What the people need to produce to create that quality of life and to run the business or entity;

Future Resource Base – What the resource base must be like far into the future in order to truly sustain. Testing. When the plan has been formulated, it has to be tested. The suggested rubrics are: iv

Cause and Effect – Does this action address the root cause of the problem?

Weak Link Social – Have I/we considered and/or addressed any confusion, anger, or opposition this action could create with people whose support I/we need in the near or distant future?

Weak Link Biological (used only when dealing with problem organisms) – Does this action address the weakest point in the life cycle of this organism?

Weak Link Financial– Does this action strengthen the weakest link in the chain of production?

Marginal Reaction (used only when comparing two or more actions) – Which action provides the greatest return, in terms of my/our holistic goal, for the time and money spent?

Gross Profit Analysis (used only when comparing two or more enterprises) – Which enterprises contribute the most to covering the overheads of the business?

Energy/Money Source and Use – Is the energy or money to be used in this action derived from the most appropriate source in terms of my/our holistic goal? Will the way in which the energy or money is to be used lead toward my/our holistic goal.

Sustainability –If I/we take this action, will it lead toward or away from the future resource base described in my/our holistic goal?

Society and Culture – Considering all the questions and my/our holistic goal, how do I/we feel about this action now? Funding. All available funding sources should be invited to participate. Active, on-going efforts to acquire foundation funding and governmental grants should be pursued. Revenue should also be derived from the subscriptions to the broadband service as well as to the online courses. Conferences other than the town meetings can also contribute to the financial stability of the NPO. Town meetings should be free with a request for donations. MINDSET At the outset, the collective mindset should be along these lines: What I know and have discovered is not nearly as important as what I have yet to learn and yet to discover. When the plan has general support, and we are in the midst of implementing it, our collective mindsets should be one of resolve, like the Little Engine: “I think I can, I think I can ..., I know I can, I know I can ..., I did it!” Nay Sayers At first, we will encounter the “Nay Sayers”: “It won't work. Too expensive. Who will use it? Not my idea (not invented here). We've never done this before; why start now? If I or my family/friend is not on the payroll, I'm against it.” The antidote to the Nay Sayers is to have a good plan on paper which is well researched and will likely be a good fit (at full implementation) with the greater Belgrade community in about four to five years. The saying from Margaret Mead is appropriate: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever does." It is appropriate to an understanding of the project, that we reserve final judgment until all of the major facts are in and we have had time to absorb the many “new” ideas. We do not need to know and appreciate every minuscule fact before we make our major commitments, but those who reject the mission before we even have started, do a disservice to the Belgrade community. Those of us who unduly linger, not being able to make a decision, also do a disservice to the Belgrade community.

WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY

Belgrade is a young, healthy community, in transition from a railroad stop for grain transfer and an farming community, to a bedroom extension of Bozeman. This statement is not to denigrate Belgrade, but to establish where we are and where we are likely to go in the absence of a course correction. If the readers doubt this statement, simply drive around Southern California for a day— wall-to-wall housing, massive jams on the Freeways and local roads, air pollution, a rising cost of living and a rising crime rate. Windows of opportunities typically open in small, young communities and as the community grows older, begin to close. In the older communities, too many people have too much invested in the then current status, to effect a transition. We have seen this phenomenon in the Rust Belt cities of the Northeast and the dust bowls or drought areas of central America. Belgrade's window of opportunity is wide-open, for now.

GOVERNANCE
Governance can be cast, using one of several different molds. The favorite form for governments is the “Joint Exercise of Powers” entity (JEPs) Two more governments having the same type of power, agree to share or trade those powers. As an example, road repair and maintenance is generally delegated to the entity which has the closest maintenance yard, or the better skilled personnel, or the closest road which they already maintain. Fire districts have mutual aid packs. Libraries have reciprocal lending agreements. The possibility exists for the City of Belgrade, the County of Gallatin, the State of Montana to head this project through the JEP approach. As it gathers momentum, additional entities could join. Major players would include the local school districts and County Superintendent of Schools. However the JEPs cannot, by their nature, extend governance to NPOs. An “affiliate” approach could work, but may require enabling legislation. Another approach is to create a community foundation as a 501.c.3 public educational entity. The governments can participate as well as NPO's and residents. Corporate and other entities could also join in the Governance through annual donations and membership on the Advisory Committee, in addition to voting memberships. Individual members can join at several levels and have relative voting powers. This is the author's favorite approach and will be explored as the model for governance, funding and fulfillment of the Plan.

THE BELGRADE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION

Entity.
The Belgrade Community Foundation (BCF) will be incorporated under the non-profit laws of the State of Montana and will operated under an IRS exemption according to the IRS Code Section 501.c.3. Memberships. Membership should have an impact on the member as well as on the entity. All voting memberships should be fee based. Here is a proposed schedule and statement of voting rights:


TYPE OF MEMBERSHIP NUMBER OF VOTES VOTING RIGHTS

Major public entities (city, County, schools). Monetary support to be negotiated.	100	Election of Trustees, dissolution, adoption and changes to plan, amendment to articles, reorganizations, mergers and acquisitions, major transfer of assets, incurring major debt. Awarded a Plaque
Major underwriters (10,000 or more, annually)	50	Election of Trustees, dissolution, adoption and changes to plan, amendment to articles, reorganizations, mergers and acquisitions, major transfer of assets, incurring major debt; Awarded a Plaque.
Minor underwriters ($1,000 to $9,999 annually)	10	Election of Trustees, adoption of and changes to the Plan; Awarded a No. 1 Premium
Sustaining members ($500 annually)	5	Election of Trustees, adoption and changes to plan; Awarded a No. 2 Premium
Subscribing Member ($100 annually)	2	Election of Trustees, adoption and changes to plan; Awarded a Mo. 3 premium
Registered member ($15.00 annually)	1	Election of Trustees, adoption and changes to plan; Awarded a certificate.
Guest	0	Read plan and participate in surveys
Proxy voting	Permitted	Registration of proxy holder in advance

Balloting.
Balloting will be permitted by secure email or on paper at the annual or special meetings. Membership is not limited to residents, but location information of each voter will be tracked for statistical purposes. An annual meeting will be held and voting for trustees and other major issues will occur. Special meetings can be called by the Board or by five percent of the voting power.

Board of Trustees.
A five person Board of Trustees will be elected, with staggered two year terms. Elections are annual. The Board will appoint all of the officers and ratify the employment of other staff. Staff and officers will serve at the pleasure of the Board. Board members will be paid for the costs of attending meetings of the Board. Normal NPO powers and duties are to be granted to the Board.

Officers and staff.
Officers will consist of the President and CEO, a Vice-president of Financial Affairs, a Vice-president of Operations and a Vice-president of Community Relations. Staff should also include a secretary and a bookkeeper. Compensation and the timing of employment will depend on funding from memberships and operations (internal) and grants and loans (external).

Contract services.
Contract services will likely include an attorney, a certified public accountant, a network engineer, and a NPO marketing consultant. Honor code. All Trustees, officers, employees and contract service providers will be required to sign a Code of Honor which, inter alia, specifically precludes nepotism and conflict of interests.

Annual audit; Bonding.
The governance articles shall also include the requirement of an annual audit by a CPA, conducted in accordance with generally accepted accounting practices for NPOs, applied on a consistent basis. The Treasurer duties shall be delegated to the Vice-president of Financial Affairs and all persons having access to the bank accounts, accounts receivable and accounts payable, shall be bonded.

Voting, Elections, votes required.
Elections and measures shall be approved by a simple majority of votes, except for dissolution, mergers, acquisitions and transfer of all or substantially all of the assets of BCF, and amendments of the articles of incorporation. These items shall require a two-thirds majority of the voting power of enrolled members. Advisory Council. The BCF will have an appointed advisory committee consisting of a cross-section of the community and specifically invited members, some of whom may reside or are engaged outside of the greater Belgrade community. This 15 to 25 member council will operated as an idea generator as well as a peer review group. It will also reflect “public” opinion and operate as a public outreach organization. Some of the pages of the WikiWebsite will be devoted to the operation of the Advisory Council.

LOCATION and INFRASTRUCTURE

Office.
A suitable location in Belgrade would house the operations. Hopefully, one of the major stakeholders would provide free housing at the outset and only charge rent as and when regular revenue exceeding operational expenses or grants/loans for operations were received. The executive and administrative functions will be in one large room which will allow for cross-talk among the officers and employees. A bathroom, a conference room/lounge and a public waiting area would complete the office infrastructure.

IT.
The office and each desk will be networked with a server and connected to the high speed broadband. Servers for webcasting, backup and archiving will be deployed. Adequate security will be installed in the hardware and software. When funding permits, a Wi-MAX service will be instituted and run by an IT consultant or an IT service company, and by the VP-Operations, when and as consistent with the level of knowledge and experience required. Web services. BCF's web services will include a number of services:

WikiWebsite.
The primary function of the BCF WikiWebsite is to engage the membership in an interactive mode. The Wikiwebsite is a highly functional method of created a “space” in which BCF and members can share visions, goals, ideas, research, suggestions and constructive criticism. As an online service, it is available 7/24 and allows any member to use his/her browser to edit the pages of the site. Such edits are then uploaded and reviewed by a Moderator who can reject the upload, edit it and/or permit the edited material to flow through to the official web page(s).

Forum and Chat.
The WikiWebsite will have a threaded forum and a chat room. Virtual reality site. In addition, specific sub-projects will have available to it, a virtual reality site (Second Life) in which 3D objects can be created, rotated and viewed by the browser (with plug-in). Visitors can comment, add avatars and create new physical elements. Real and virtual meetings can be held over the Web and be shown to a live audience using a smart whiteboard.v

E-Commerce.
Creating an e-commerce functionality within the WikiWebsite is a high and early priority. Membership fees need to be collected, paid subscribers to the broadband service need a means of transacting business, and sale of paper and digital publications can also take place via the e-commerce function. Member support. The website will provide a help facility, including frequently asked questions, an indexed look-up database, a fuzzy logic search engine, the current and archived editions of the e-newsletter and a list of archived “white papers” on relevant subjects. Finally, an email address and phone number for the support team will be provided. Opinion surveys; metrics. The website will allow for opinion surveys on the issue of the day and provide for web statistics through a metrics program. Kiosks. Kiosks will be offered to local business and governmental entities (Kiosk Provider) for use in the public areas of their respective locations. Wireless (and wired) access will be limited to the BCF's Wikiwebsite. The Kiosk Provider and BCF could, for an additional fee, provide general Internet access. The cost of the Kiosk and its maintenance will be borne by the Kiosk Provider.

MARKETING

Marketing in the NPO sense, covers a broad spectrum of activity. Friend- and Fund-raising. Tried and true friend- and fund-raising should be at the front end and at the core of BCF's marketing effort. [Editor's note: Having attended the 5th annual conference of Montana Nonprofit Association, I have a lot of material to present on this issue – coming in the near future.] Community Schooling Kit. Create a Community Schooling fan kit which can be distributed in hard copy as well as over the Web. This outreach kit is more than just a PR outreach effort. It invites each user to become a registered member of the Belgrade Community Foundation and to engage in the Belgrade Community Schooling Project with defined gift levels, rewards and volunteer opportunities. An example is the “telephone (and Web) tree” which fosters individual connections among the members on an exponential scale. vi

Wi-MAX.
BCF will invite residents who do not have high speed, broadband Internet access to obtain such superior utility through the BCF's Wi-MAX service. A list of private providers and a comparison chart of rates and services will be provided. A good model would be Next Tag: www.nextag.com Online courses. The WikiWebsite will offer online courses. Many of these courses are free and the offering site's URL hyperlinked to the BCF website with click-through capability and metrics. Fee based services can following this same route or courses created by volunteers and donated to BCF can licensed to the users for a modest fee. The possibility also exists to offer online courses authored by other fee-for-service organizations and resold to users at a margin sufficient recoup costs and a small operating stipend. Online courses can also be a boon to the local schools which are able to purchase annual lessons on a district-wide or school-wide basis. Adult education fits this mode. A simply hyperlink is all that is needed to redirect web traffic to the school's website. E-Books and e-resources. A very strong and continuously growing demand and supply for e-books can benefit BCF's community schooling efforts.

The Gutenberg project has between 300,000 and 500,000 scanned books available for download. Thousands of websites grant permission to free downloads for educational purposes. Many (if not all) universities issue research papers under a form of the GNU general public license. Foundations, think tanks and commercial enterprises have thousands of free white papers on a wide variety of subjects. Most of these sites have internal search engines. Search engines. One of the greatest attributes of the Web are the search engines. Yahoo and Google have made many gazillionaires out of their commercial ventures. Metacrawler.com uses seven major search engines to produce targeted URL's. The new “kid on the block” is Ask.com. Minuet factoids can be found among trillions of factoids in a couple of seconds.

BCF's community schooling project will include a course on how to gain “Web Savvy”, including the use of search engines. Support for home-grown arts, entertainment and events. One of the main marketing tools is to support local arts, entertainment and events. Many musical and dance groups perform in the community. Advance ticket sales can be induced by pre-event webcasting of a prior show or teaser by the performance group. Parental pride can always be counted on to engender ticket sales, especially if the child's performance is to be video web-cast shortly after the performance. Sporting events are naturals for webcasting. Shoot the game and the site's play-by-play announcer and you have a good-enough webcast. Parades, county fairs – you name it-- all are good candidates for event webcasting. Documentaries can also be a good source. We have many natural wonders to videocast. Montana has a rich history of pioneering and individual accomplishments as well as group accomplishments which are excellent candidates for a documentary, to be webcast on BCF's Wi-MAX utility service.

Multi-media studio.
Support for home-grown arts and entertainment needs technical support. As an example, BCF should support the creation of a high tech multi-media studio at the high school, which is open to all producers. During the school day, the students learn to operate the studio. After hours and on weekends, the studio is open to the public through BCF. Expenses can be recovered by rental revenue. Rental costs should be charged according to the intended end product, e.g. for producing a commercial program, the charges would be based on the fair market rental value. This studio can become self-supporting with this approach. If the school will not house the operation, then BCF should house the operation. The multi-media studio will have an in-house performance stage and can also do outside production (e.g. football game). Some of the types of events which can use the services of the studio are:

• Create online events, e.g. educational courses, contests, documentaries (e.g., school class travels to an event, gives a performance).
• Support community physical events as one of the media promotion spots.
• Co-venture with other organizational members to support public charities, e.g., the Gallatin Community Food Bank, in mutual fund raising events.
• Create streaming web-casts (audio and video) in support of community events, such as a live broadcast of a parade, sporting event, poetry reading or musical performance. These can also be archived and downloaded 7/24.

BUILDING THE BETTER COMMUNITY NETWORK

“Communities are built on connections. Better connections usually provide better opportunities. But, what are better connections, and how do they lead to more effective and productive communities? How do we build connected communities that create, and take advantage of, opportunities in their region or marketplace? How does success emerge from the complex interactions within communities? This paper investigates building sustainable communities through improving their connectivity - internally and externally - using network ties to create economic opportunities. Improved connectivity is created through an iterative process of knowing the network and knitting the network.”

Building Smart Communities through Network Weaving by Valdis Krebs and June Holley (2006) vii

The goal of building better community networks, beyond relying on the usual social and economic groups, is to “wire” the community through the Web using the power of the Internet. Every computer connected to the Internet will be a wired or wireless node and thereby allow networking on a 1:1, 1:many, and many:1 basis. The objective is to enable all residents to make the connections through the BCF Wi-MAX system (as well as commercial board band services). Net profits from the “business side” of BCF will support the non-business side (after paying taxes on the business side profits).

STAKEHOLDERS.

The success of the BCF's community schooling project hinges on the early and continued support by its stakeholders. We will need money, equipment, office space and utilities, and most importantly, cooperation. If the school district does not pitch in or opposes the project, we a dead in the water from the outset. The rate of growth of the Belgrade Community Schooling Project will vary with the amount of and timing of the stakeholder support. We need a combination of visionaries and workers (at all levels). We need the help of the brightest and best minds in the wider community in order to develop our plan with the highest opportunity for success. When the planning is done, then we need to kick the plan into high gear. We need “truck drivers” to help get things rolling. Stakeholders and our staff, need to be able to shift gears when the time comes.

Those with doctorates, as well as high school freshmen, are welcome and will be needed to drive the trucks and bring the load home. We will need an outreach team to enroll the stakeholders. This team needs a high level of support, including laptops, digital projectors, marketing kits, travel expenses and a office as mentioned above. Our initial sponsors should understand this need and be willing to fund it with cash and resources (one or the other or both). Here are some targets for the probable stakeholders: City of Belgrade. Commissioners City Manager Library Other County of Gallatin. Commissioners Sheriff County Attorney

Other:

State of Montana. State Legislature. Governor's office. viii
Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Commissioner of Higher Education.
Department of Agriculture.
Department of Environmental Quality.
Department of Transportation. Department of Commerce. ix
Attorney General.
Department of Public Health and Human Services.
Department of Labor. U.S. Federal Government. Congress. x
Dept. of Agriculture.
Dept. of Transportation
Dept. of Energy Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.

Montana Universities.
University of Montana.
MSU – Bozeman MSU – Billings

All others:
United Nations UNESCO

Others, Foundations.
The Bill and Linda Gates Foundation.
The Paul Allen Foundations.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation.
The Kellogg Foundation.
The Jane and Herman Melville Foundation.
The Ahnenberg Foundation.

Others For-profit companies.
The Home Depot First Interstate Bank
Other banks and financial institutions.
Right Now Technologies.

Others. Non-profit organizations.
PBS YPR Others

FINANCIAL PLAN

The Financial Plan consists of the proposed Capital Budget, the Operating Budget, the Cash Flow statement (See Tab A) and the Financing Plan (under Tab B).

----------------------------------------------------------------END NOTES----------------------------------------------------------------
i
INTERNET ACCESS AND UNDERSERVED POPULATIONS

Evaluation of the Interaction of Context, Process and Outcomes of the Internet Satellite Project
At the national level, the project brought together partners from the public sector (including Internet2, Cooperative Extension, and ADEC) and the private sector (Tachyon, Inc.). These partners sought to create advanced networking solutions capable of reaching Internet-excluded sites at an affordable price for research, education, and community development.

Other key partners critical to this effort include organizations and institutions at the local level, including community colleges, tribal governments, housing authorities, community schools, and cultural centers (to name a few). NCRCRD is studying the impact of the project at participating sites. We have written four reports describing some of our findings (please check back with us as we continue to add new reports to this web site).

MORE: http://www.ncrcrd.iastate.edu/projects/adec/index.htm


ii

Robert on Nancy's Responses to Kat: A parent's point of view ROBERT H. wrote:
Well gang, this one got long. I hope it's as fun to read as it was to write!
I want to comment on Nancy's encouraging response. I fully agree that a supportive community must not only have an intention but a process that supports that intention. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it is the process that best expresses the community's intention.
These are all very pretty words on my part, but what do they mean?
To me, they mean a constant process of raising our own consciousness about the extent and debilitating effects of our cultural conditioning. This conditioning differs from accidental community to accidental community, and so the dysfunctional effects will differ as well. So will the positive and adaptive effects! The trick is to recognize which effects are detrimental and then inquire about the conditioning that drives those behaviors. No cultural practice or belief should be held more sacred than the process of honest and respectful inquiry.
One practice that might have had survival value, but which has had devastating side effects, has been the tendency of people to conflate their own positions of privilege with the well-being of the community as a whole. In its most extreme form, that notion has resulted in the divine right of kings and all of the excesses that have followed from that terribly misguided principle.
Unfortunately, we still see that principle operating in the feudal
organization of industrial production we call Capitalism. However, elitism can also take the form of tribalism, as exhibited in the extreme in the various genocides of the 20th Century. Other forms of elitism, which are typically rationalized as "preserving our way of life," include racist, sexist, and other exclusionary or exploitive practices of varying degrees, including terrorism and governmental conspiracies to suppress legitimate dissent.
Having grown up in one of many existing accidental communities, we each have been conditioned to engage in behaviors, including habituated thoughts, with which we identify. That is what conditioning is for. It allows a person to operate without thinking. However, many of those behaviors are likely to be dysfunctional and contrary to our intention to live sustainably in community. That is simply a given because we know that people can and do adapt to new circumstances all the time. Those identifications are often hard to give up when survival doesn't appear to be at stake because we have
no urgent feedback to indicate that they aren't succeeding. However, just because they aren't making us overtly ill today doesn't mean they are good!
When we move into an environment of intentional community, part of the commitment is to respond to feedback long before it reaches a crisis stage. Without that commitment, there really is no difference between an "intentional" community and yet another variant of an accidental community--self-congratulatory though our temporary escape from the ills of conventionality might seem. We'll just wind up creating a new conventionality unless we can establish an ongoing practice of honest and respectful inquiry.
Because our background forms the matrix through which we evaluate feedback, we cannot know which outward behaviors and inward thoughts are actually contributing and which are actually dysfunctional once we enter into our new cultural environment. And, we cannot be sure, when giving feedback to one another, the extent to which our own impulse to do so comes from a functional or dysfunctional identification. Well, actually that's not quite true. The level of adrenaline/urgency associated with the desire to give or rebut such feedback is often a clue. If the urgency is disproportionate to the severity of the situation, there is probably a component of unconscious identification in the mix.
There is always grief involved in recognizing the damage that has been done by our well-intended but dysfunctional behaviors. It is the responsibility of the person offering feedback to be available to support and comfort the recipient when an understanding of ill effects hits home. That is one part of being respectful. Another part is in recognizing that the desire to offer feedback could be coming from an unconscious and dysfunctional pattern, and so there is seldom room for an attitude of righteousness. It is the responsibility of the recipient to honestly inquire into her- or himself as to the drivers of the behavior that the feedback is about and to ask for all the support he or she needs to understand those roots and come to an acceptance of the full extent of the consequences.
Within this process, we will also discover a wealth of adaptive and supportive practices from all of the cultures that we bring. Hence, the more diverse the backgrounds of our community members, the richer and more rewarding our lives will be.
All the best,

1. Robert H.
2. The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful
3. servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten
4. the gift. --Albert Einstein

As I was reading thru this, Robert's statement above, "No cultural practice or belief should be held more sacred than the process of honest and respectful inquiry." struck me as an important observation. What do you think... is no cultural practice or belief more important than honest inquiry?


In Love, Eric .The Mariposa Group www.mariposagroup.org
iiiThe project is to be approached and completed in accordance with the general holistic principals advocated by Alan Savory in Holistic Resource Management, 1988.
iv
Rubric: Does the plan examine and evaluate the elements: location, physical characteristics, utility and road infrastructure, working environment, governance, processing and storage facilities, educational opportunities, demographics, potential for an economic garden, quality of life, and cost of living?
v
VIRTUAL TOWN MEETINGS
Virtual town meetings can be conducted in a number of ways.
The easiest and most functional in a static senses, is to create a WikiWeb. See www.Wikipedia.org. Any user can edit any page, add a page or delete a page (subject to the Moderator's approval). Access can be by anyone, anytime, or access restrictions can be applied by the Moderator/Administrator. This system is asynchronous and is very persistent over a long time. Threads are simply sub-pages off the main page or off a sub-page.
Real time conferencing has may flavors. SABA is a very good system for interactive meetings and courses. Please watch the demo at: http://www.saba.com/products/centra/why/index.htm
Another popular system is GoToMeeting which is similar to MS net.Meeting. See: https://www.gotomeeting.com/t/gg/aw/g2mP/BL/web_meeting-brd/g2m_b3nopasslp?Target=m/g2m_b3nopasslp.tmpl

The cheapest (free) is Vyew. See the comparison chart at: http://www.vyew.com/content/ComparisonChart
The main limitation is that Vyew supports only 20 concurrent online users. The work-around is to hold several sessions on different subjects. However, it has many outstanding features as shown by the comparison chart. For example, it has the persistence of a Wikiweb:
Persistence (always-on collaboration) Each meeting room in Vyew is persistent, which means all of the meeting data stays intact even when everyone leaves the meeting. If given permission, attendees or presenters can come back to the meeting a week, month or year later to review, edit and post to the meeting.” It has a white board feature (I have not as yet evaluated it) which will typically allows for user input in synchronous mode. It also has an archive feature.
These systems are just a few of the tools for virtual community meetings which can offer low cost, widely-accessible collaboration over time on any community issue. The greater the level of access (Wi-MAX), the more folks can participate on any issue which interests them and share their views/facts/opinions with other members of the community. These systems also offer a vehicle for online courses at all levels. The community meeting is just one way to use the competence of members of the community to “educate” other members.
Community schooling includes community schools. The latter generally uses the same facilities as the public school, and start after the normal daily session ends and goes to 9:00 p.m. This “school after school” can be separate or co-joined with the entire schooling as seen in the article about the School of the Future.
http://www.districtadministration.com/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=767
Most “after-school schooling” is generally public and open to all enrolled students of all ages and is physical. By using the virtual school concept, every computer connected via the Web is “in” the classroom. The cost of operation is very small as compared to the brick and mortar approach.
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Madison start-up bets on interactive future for reading education

NeuronFarm releases reading comprehension software after long journey Les Chappell • Published 05/02/05

http://wistechnology.com/article.php?id=1782
A 3D-Readers screen shot, courtesy of NeuronFarm. Madison, Wis. — After four years of development the electronic learning company NeuronFarm has put the finishing touches on its interactive Web-based learning tool 3D-Readers, moving past early funding difficulties and technological hurdles.

The company formally announced the system on Monday at the International Reading Association Conference in San Antonio.

"[Now] our challenge is getting the word out and the product in schools," said Carol Goedken, vice president of sales and marketing for NeuronFarm.

• Read where NeuronFarm was at one year ago.

When Mina Johnson-Glenberg, now president and chief science officer of NeuronFarm, founded the company in 2001 her goal was to develop an online reading system for students with learning disabilities. She wanted to move past teaching how to read and go into improving reading skills though a tool teachers and students could use with minimum preparation.

Locating in Madison gave NeuronFarm a strong body of talent, but locating capital proved to be a problem. While the Department of Commerce and members of some venture capital firms were able to give their advice so NeuronFarm could lay out a business plan, "active and passionate" angel investors were absent from the picture.

Johnson-Glenberg said that the main problem was that in Madison, investors are focused on biotechnology start-ups and advances and most other technologies simply "fall of the radar."

"I wouldn't say Wisconsin has a plethora of investors who are easy to reach," Johnson-Glenberg said.

To get started NeuronFarm had to look to other methods, applying for Small Business Innovation Research grants offered by the National Institute of Health and the U.S. Department of Education. The company won four of them by 2004 and added over $1.4 million dollars to their resources, funds which Johnson-Glenberg said were vital to getting NeuronFarm started.

"We're sort of the poster children for NIH in that regard," Johnson-Glenberg said. "That's what the [grants] were created for, to take innovative research and get products developed and commercialized."

Building the technology also took time, but NeuronFarm began the project prepared for that. "Technology is a complex animal, especially with artificial intelligence," said NeuronFarm Chief Operations Officer Ankur Malhotra.

The company had several demanding goals for the interactive system, which was designed to move students past multiple-choice and into descriptive answers to the questions posed. It needed to supply students with their results almost instantly, incorporate a verbal and visual interface that would engage both sides of a user's brain, and have a strong correlation between the student's a strong correlation between the student's answer and the system's judgments.

NeuronFarm developed 3D-Readers to handle each of these requirements, providing students with a mix of 2,000-word stories and flash animations that describe key facts in the story. Students then fill out "constructive text responses" and vocabulary lists the system evaluated based on clarity, completeness and understanding of the information.

Danielle McNamara, a psychology professor at University of Memphis experienced with Web-based applications related to reading and learning, said that a focus on interactive technology is the best thing NeuronFarm could do for creating learning software. Interactive technology will likely be the most useful in the future, since students' abilities do not stay constant.

"Currently there are very few interfaces that are highly interactive, they are simply 'read and ask questions,'" McNamara said. "When you interact with the learner, than the learner is more able to learn from the experience."

Malhotra said NeuronFarm's biggest break in developing 3D-Readers was that they had correctly predicted a Web browser would make the best platform for learning. An estimated 98 percent of all public schools are hooked up to the Internet and 90 percent have high-speed connections. This makes 3D-Readers accessible in most educational settings without the need for further installation.

"Two years ago would have been too early," Malhotra said of 3D-Readers. "Now schools are ready [and] now it sets itself up well for the future."

After completing development the system was tested in several schools in the Madison area, including the Walbridge School for Children with Learning Disabilities. Thirteen students between third and eighth grade with dyslexia or ADD read stories and answered questions provided through some of the ten science modules provided by NeuronFarm.

Donna Daniels, a science and computer instructor at Walbridge, said that while she thought the training was not spaced out enough – 70 minutes a day for ten days straight was too intense – she was impressed and surprised by the results the students showed. Since they got results so fast and couldn't argue with the computer, they were driven to try harder on their answers.

"This was a population that is in general not super readers and they were working very hard on it and were interested," Daniels said. "They really cared about getting a good grade on those tests."

With its product now available, NeuronFarm plans to keep adding to it and acting on customer opinions. Five more modules are planned for release in fall of 2005, and plans are underway to develop more for language arts and mathematics courses. NeuronFarm also plans to market the system to summer schools for additional trials.

Despite being a little smaller than was planned, NeuronFarm is completely undeterred. "We feel like we're on the leading edge of technology in schools," Goedken said. "We're not just assessing, we're finding qualities to help through visual and verbal comprehension."



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My request for permission to copy and republish this article in full as part of this plan, is pending. Building Smart Communities through Network Weaving by Valdis Krebs and June Holley (2006
viii
JAMES E. MILLER P. O. Box 1172 Belgrade, MT 59714 Email: jimmiller5417@yahoo.com

05/13/06
Mrs. Nancy Peterson DirectorMontana Department of Agriculture
P.O. Box 200201
Helena, Montana 59620-0201 Dear Mrs. Peterson: Your comment about shipping our children out of state hit home. http://www.havredailynews.com/articles/2006/05/10/local_headlines/ag.txt Here is my my take on the subject in a letter recently sent to the Governor: Brian: I suppose it has occurred to you that there is an inescapable link between the (lack of) quality of Montana education and job creation, levels of compensation, business opportunities and general quality of life. Students need two jobs: During school, the students need something more than a sub-poverty jobs to help get through college. After graduation, the newly minted student needs a job which will permit marriage, children and a decent quality of life. Montana bills itself as the "last best place". Yes, indeed, we are "last". Last in wage level. What can we do to become the "first best place"? We need quality Montana education which does not consist mostly of talking heads and examinations which mostly test the student's ability to do rote memory. We need teachers who are "thinking heads", not talking heads. Same for students. Rote memory of tons of "content" does not cut it and probably never did. We have to stop educating students to fill non-existing or low paying jobs which were created 100 years ago as part of the second industrial revolution. It's time Montana education became first in high tech (good during the brutal winters). Our educational plants are dismal failures, especially our university schools of education. They continue (for the most part) to teach old dogmas, recite catechisms, drill students with stuff which has never been submitted to a double blind, independent, fact-based tests. Mostly, what they teach is not relevant to the future needs of the students. Our graduates leave Montana in search of higher paying jobs. Does this make sense? The taxpayers, students, parents and other spend tons of money educating our students, only to ship them out of the state. Talk about the drain on jobs due to outsourcing -- our brain drain is worse than outsourcing, but has the same consequences. All the Legislature seems to be able to do is to throw money at the problem and hope that the huge chain of school executives, administrators, boards and teachers find a good way to spend the money. The latter make misinformed or misguided choices. Sure they need new school buses; they need to fix the plant, raise teacher salaries, reduce class size -- etc. Where is the leadership, leading our schools into the digital, online revolution in education? There is none; and don’t tell me the Burns Center has the solution – it doesn’t. I say its time for you, as our Governor, take the lead and make sure that every new educational dollar (Federal, State and local) is somehow tied to a proven digital-based, education initiative which has worked for other schools in our nation. I gave you a starter list via the loose-leaf note book and briefed Jan Lombardi on the need to engage our minds and money in specific digital initiatives. The State's next turn at bat is the 2007 legislative session. Your energies should shape the agenda well in advance. You can do it; you're our best hope for a quality education system in Montana which will help solve the brain drain and make Montana the "first best place".
Sincerely yours,

James E. Miller
ix
JAMES E. MILLER P. O. Box 1172 Belgrade, MT 59714 Email: jimmiller5417@yahoo.com

05/13/06
Joanne Gilbert
CDBG Program Assistant Dept of Commerce
301 South Park - PO Box 200523
Helena MT 59620-0523 Ph: 841-2791 Fax: 841-2771 jgilbert@mt.gov
Dear Ms. Gilbert:
The vice practiced by most community and state planning entities arises from the adoption of zoning and land use ordinances which pigeon-hole human activities into defined map locations. Have you ever wondered why our society is so dependent on the fossil fueled transportation sector? Why we have so much air pollutions from the exhaust pipes? Why we have some steep vehicular insurance rates? Why we have so many folks driving single occupancy cars? Why we have MADD, deaths and injury from our love to travel every road and by-way of the U.S.? Why, in more urban areas, commuters spend a significant portion of their lives in freeway lanes-- a totally nonsense, non-productive use of time.
Our land use patterns follow these out-moded dictates found in the Montana Growth Resource Book, quoted in part:
“The planning board must initially decide on the land use classification system to use in gathering information. This classification system will vary from community to community. To be of maximum benefit, there should be some attempt to coordinate land use classes between adjoining communities and counties.
An Example of a Land Use Classification System




























The best solution is to change how society lives and works – a kind of return to yesteryear. We need to work were we live and live where we work. We need to create self-sufficient, sustainable mini-communities. We need to be able to walk to work in the community; or better yet, work on our own property.
The communitarian approach requires a sea change in thinking of community planners. We need to establish the “campus” approach. We need to combine self-sufficiency in growing our food with light industry so that all work the intentional community does (generally) is done “on the farm” or at least, in the same small community.
Using this approach, we can turn poverty-stricken, rural communities into robust economic engines. Many have tried and failed. Some have succeeded. The best examples are Findhorn in Scotland and Mondragon in Spain. Mondragon started out with five graduate engineering students making paraffin stoves in Mondragon in the Basque region of Spain in the 40's. Now, Mondragon Cooperative Corporation has over 200 cooperative businesses and grosses several billion a year.
Montana as a State needs to abandon the pigeon-hole concept of land planning and embrace the communitarian, intentional community, as the favored model for the future economic growth and economic equality for its residents. I have written many articles on this subject and would be glad to share them with the State of Montana in some appropriate way. Attached are some articles which go deeper into this subject.
Sincerely yours,
James E. Miller
x



Concerned About Allegations of Child Abuse, Representative Miller Requests GAO Investigation Into ‘Boot Camps’
Wednesday, December 21, 2005

WASHINGTON, DC -- Representative George Miller (D-CA) today asked the General Accountability Office to conduct a comprehensive investigation of residential treatment programs for children – commonly called “boot camps” – in light of repeated allegations of child abuse and fraud at these programs in the United States and abroad. Very little is currently known about the programs, which have sprung up all over the country since the early 1990’s and which Miller estimates now serve thousands of American children. Miller said today that Congress needs more information about these programs so it can monitor and regulate them effectively. “Across the country and abroad, treatment facilities that in many cases appear to be unregulated, unlicensed, and unaccredited are enrolling thousands of American children. In countless cases, children have reported acts of physical and emotional abuse by staff members at these facilities,” said Miller, the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. “Yet Congress has nothing more than alarming anecdotal information about the true extent of this problem. “There is no issue more serious than the health and safety of our children. Congress needs this information so it can act to keep children safe.” In 2003, newspapers reported allegations of abuse at residential treatment programs operated by the Utah-based World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS), which now has facilities in the United States and Jamaica. Between 1996 and 2004, state, local, and international authorities shut down at least eight facilities operated by or affiliated with WWASPS, according to press reports. In November 2003, Miller asked then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate WWASPS for allegations of “child abuse, human rights violations, fraudulent and deceptive advertising, fraud and unjust enrichment under the Internal Revenue Code, and violations of other Federal civil or criminal laws.” Despite repeated requests from Miller for an investigation, the Justice Department never launched one. In April 2005, Miller introduced legislation, H.R. 1738, intended to prevent child abuse at residential treatment facilities in the U.S. and abroad. In August 2005, the Child Welfare League of America called for a GAO review of residential treatment programs. The full text of Miller’s letter to the GAO is below. *** December 21, 2005 Mr. David M. Walker, Comptroller General
Government Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20548 Dear Mr. Walker: In my capacity as the Senior Democratic Member on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, I am requesting a study by the GAO of residential treatment programs and the companies that own and operate them. This study is urgently needed because of allegations of child abuse, human rights violations, fraud, and other violations of law by companies that operate these facilities. Since the early 1990’s, hundreds of these programs – sometime referred to as behavior modification facilities or boot camps – are believed to have been established by U.S. companies both within the U.S. and abroad. Thousands of American children are enrolled in these programs. The true size of the industry is not known; in 2004, the Chicago Tribune reported that “a trade association and other experts say the schools are a $1 billion to $1.2 billion industry that serves 10,000 to 14,000 school-age children.” While there may be programs that provide high-quality services to help troubled adolescents get back on track, the long history of allegations against many residential treatment programs demands that Congress become more informed about the industry in order to prepare legislation to better regulate it. For example, the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, or WWASPS, operates several behavior modification facilities in the United States and abroad. State, local, and international authorities closed at least eight WWASPS facilities between 1996 and 2004 for running afoul of the law. In 2004, Mexican authorities shut down a WWASPS facility in Ensenada, Mexico, called Casa by the Sea, for violations of immigration statutes, the improper distribution of pharmaceuticals, and indications of child abuse, according to The New York Times. More recently, in May 2005, police in New York State were dispatched to the Academy at Ivy Ridge because of a riot during which 11 children fled the campus. In August, Ivy Ridge agreed to pay $1.65 million in refunds and fines because it had issued 113 diplomas even though it was not licensed or accredited to do so. John Sullivan, an assistant New York Attorney General, told Knight-Ridder that the case was “one of the largest educational fraud cases in New York state history.” In order to help Congress get a full understanding of potential problems with residential treatment programs, I ask that you answer the following questions: Overview of industry How many of these residential treatment companies and facilities exist in the United States? (These may also be referred to as behavior modification facilities or “therapeutic” or “specialty” boarding schools.) Which companies have the largest market share in the industry? How many facilities, operated by or affiliated with U.S. companies, exist outside of the United States? How many American children do these facilities serve? Please provide data about the demographic and economic backgrounds of these children. What forms of financing or financial support (i.e., loans, grants, scholarships, health insurance) are available to students and parents to pay for tuition, room and board at these residential treatment facilities? What role do foundations or other third parties, such as the C.S. Landre Foundation, play in providing funds for children to attend residential treatment facilities? State regulations and industry standards Which states already have licensing or accreditation requirements for residential treatment facilities for children? Which states maintain safety, mental health, or educational standards for these programs? What are those standards, and how effective are they? What existing Federal laws, if any, help states in their efforts to monitor residential treatment facilities? What industry standards, if any, exist among residential treatment programs? Are there any trade organizations that represent the industry? What industry referral sources exist to help parents identify and select programs? Allegations of fraud How many residential treatment programs are authorized and accredited to provide educational services and award diplomas? What evidence exists of residential treatment programs misleading and defrauding clients about their educational services and ability to award diplomas?

How do these programs and companies represent themselves to potential clients? For example, what advertising and marketing techniques do these companies and programs use to attract clients? Allegations of abuse Please conduct a thorough review of allegations of human rights violations, child abuse, child sexual abuse, and other allegations of mistreatment of children. What evidence of physical or emotional abuse of children by employees of residential treatment programs exists? Which programs have been shut down based on findings of abuse or mistreatment of children? Special tax treatment What special tax treatment, if any, do these residential treatment facilities receive? Do any of these residential treatment programs qualify as an institution such that the costs of tuition, meals, lodging and transportation are deductible medical expenses under the Internal Revenue Code? Do tuition and/or fees paid to residential treatment programs for some types of services constitute special education expenses and therefore qualify as deductible medical expenses under Internal Revenue Code laws and regulations?
Justice Department authority to conduct investigations What authority does the U.S. Justice Department have to conduct civil and criminal investigations of residential treatment programs? If you have any questions about this request, please call Cheryl Johnson on my staff at (202) 225-5700. Thank you in advance for your prompt consideration of this request. Sincerely, GEORGE MILLER
Senior Democratic Member
Committee on Education & the Workforce