IrelandOffline Chairman's Report

dahamsta

This is a copy of the report emailed to all members. It includes items already discussed on this forum, as not all of our members use this forum.

adam

IRELANDOFFLINE CHAIRMAN'S REPORT

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First of all, the IOFFL committee would like to wish all you and your family a Happy New Year with the hope that in 2002 we can at last achieve our objectives of improved Internet access in Ireland.

The start of a new year is a traditional time to take stock, so I would like to summarise what we the committee believe we have achieved to date, address a number of problem areas we have encountered and outline our strategy for this year.


1. ACHIEVEMENTS TO DATE

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In just over 7 months, we believe that we have achieved a lot.

What started off as a group of disgruntled users complaining on ie.comp has grown into a well-organised lobby group of almost 1300 members. We have had meetings with the key players like Eircom, ODTR, Esat, and Mary O'Rourke and have maintained contact with them on a regular basis. As part of this, we have achieved extensive media coverage in the national press, IT magazines, both online and offline, and national and local radio. We are now recognised as the authoritative voice of the "ordinary internet user of Ireland".

It can be argued that we haven't achieved anything practical to change the situation but much of this has been outside our sphere of influence -
Broadband, for example, is now very much in the legal arena and there is little we can really do on this specific issue.

What we have done, and in my opinion must continue to do, is bring the whole Internet access issue to the forefront of the media and expose how Eircom are strangling the development of this country, particularly in the run-up to a general election.


2. PROBLEM AREAS

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There is a number of problem areas that we are currently addressing.

Whilst we have had a considerable degree of success in creating a high profile for IOFFL, we have not yet done enough on educating politicians and non-technical media on just how dire the Internet access situation really is in Ireland and how it can seriously impact on the economic growth of our country. We have to gather much better hard factual on how Ireland compares to other countries and present this in a way that is easily understandable.

Due to severe time pressures on the committee, our communications to the general membership has been a bit sporadic. This has not been helped by the fact that a lot of the work we have been doing recently has been 'behind the scenes' in such areas as lobbying politicians. There is nothing secret about this work, it is just that people like politicians can be better dealt with out of the public arena.

As a result of this, we have been heavily dependent on our forum. Unfortunately, a small number of people have caused disruption on the forum by using it as a vehicle to make very personalised attacks on various members of the committee. I would emphasise that we have no problem with justified or constructive criticism; at the same time, we have to recognise that our forum is the public face of IOFFL and we know that it is closely monitored by people outside IOFFL, including Eircom, ODTR, Esat and civil servants - one measure of the success of IOFFL! For this reason, we have had to delete or move a number of abusive posts.

A number of our members also want to get involved more actively in promoting IOFFL. Since our seminar in August and the Blackout in November, there hasn't been much opportunity for members to get actively involved.

We also have some weaknesses in regard to our web site. Niall O'Keefe has done an excellent job in setting up and maintaining the site but the organisation has grown so much that the site now needs considerable restructuring. There is also some confusion over the 3 url's - irelandoffline.com, irelandoffline.org and irelandoffline.net that we have to resolve.


3. RESTRUCTURING

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In order to deal with the problems outlined above and give us a new momentum, we are proposing the introduction of 3 Working Groups to deal with specific areas. Each of these groups will be chaired (at least initially) by a committee member. The proposed groups are:

RESEARCH WORKING GROUP

To be chaired by Fergus McDonald (a.k.a. Fergus on our forum)

This group will be responsible for, obviously, research. That involves researching and reporting technical, legal and regulatory matters; but it also covers the retrieval, sorting and storage of relevant documentation for reference, including technical documents, statistics and reports, and even news items that are relevant to the organisation. They will also be responsible for distilling the information to suit different purposes for the other working groups, and the webmaster (and so the membership). The output from this group will greatly help with our lobbying efforts, as it will be easier to retrieve or compile reports, and allow for speedy press releases from the PRO.

LOBBYING WORKING GROUP

To be chaired by Martin Harran (a.k.a o_donnel_abu on our forum)

There is a definite need for a dedicated group to handle political and representative organisation lobbying. Suggested tasks include research and development of possible lobbying targets; strategy development, preparation of material that will best represent the group and the organisation of meetings and follow-ups in association with the liaison.

MEMBERSHIP WORKING GROUP

To be chaired by Mike Megan (a.k.a. SkepticOne on our forum)

This group will also be responsible for communicating with the members, through regular mailings, meetings if necessary, and even support to a degree. They will also handle the organisation and marketing of public meetings and seminars. They should always be pressuring for public meetings, and encouraging the members to come up with new ideas, which can be compiled and handed off to the group responsible.

One particular objective for this group will be to set up regular short briefings for members to avoid long newsletters like this We will shortly be seeking volunteers for these three groups - the committee members responsible will contact you shortly to give more details on what we are looking for and how you can volunteer.

Apart from these working groups, we have also set up a sub-committee with Adam Beecher (a.k.a. Dahamsta), David Staunton (a.k.a. 80p) and Fergus McDonald to work with Niall O'Keefe on restructuring our website. This will include such items as resolving the url issue, setting up sections and mailing lists within the site for each Working Group, restructuring the site into more clearly defined areas, broadly in line with the activities of each Working Group. David Long will co-ordinate this sub-committee


4. FORWARD STRATEGY

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The key objectives of IOFFL remain the same - Unmetered Access, Broadband and Local Loop Unbundling.

We are limited in what we can do in practical terms, particularly in regard to Broadband and LLU which are now in the legal arena. Where we can make a difference, however, is by keeping these issues highlighted in the media, by lobbying our government and TD's, particularly in the run up to the general election, and by getting other groups behind our campaign. This latter one is a case of education - for example, the response of the Small Firms Association (SFA) to our blackout was extremely annoying, but we should realise that organisations like this do not fully understand the Internet access situation and we should take on the task of enlightening them. As suggested by members, we should also seek the active support of organisations to whom the Internet is a vital resource such as the National Council for the Blind


5. OTHER ITEMS

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In order to get up to date with the various parties involved in Internet access and help the work of the Lobbying Working Group, we trying to set up meetings for later this month with Esat, Eircom, ODTR and the Department of Public Enterprise to get their up to date position on the various issues. We will also be having a first meeting UTVInternet and, subject to time availability, with organisations like SFA and IBEC.

Finally, I would like to express my personal thanks to the IOFFL committee who have worked so very hard in getting us to where we are, particularly during over the last few months when business demands have caused me to be mostly an 'absentee chairman'. I am sure no-one will mind me picking out Elana for particular praise for working so hard during advanced stages of pregnancy; in case any of you missed it, she had a baby boy, Patrick Thomas Kehoe on Sunday December 23rd. A super Christmas present for a super couple.


Martin Harran
Chairman, IrelandOffline

dahamsta

HUP! This is just to bubble the thread back up to the top, since I've removed the Sticky.

adam