CCIL Needs Your Help!

 

 

I.                    Where do we go from here ? –

·        We need to fill critical staffing. (by the end of September 2002)

·        We need to get all basic CCIL features working and working in a way that is easy for all to use.  Including Registration, Account management, web hosting, domain hosting, mailing lists, e-mail, and text access.(by the end of October 2002)

·        Provide training and documentation for staff and users. (Started by 11/2002)

·        Recruit a new board of directors. (by the end of December of 2002)  They will be charged with setting the long term goals for the organization

 

 

II.                 What can you do to help? –

·        Volunteer for one of the positions on the Task List that needs filled.

·        Invite a friend to join our staff and fill one of the Task List needs.

·        Take a leadership role, and be the person to coordinate a group of staff.

·        Bring forward the names of qualified people to server on CCIL’s Board.

·        Invite representatives from other Non-profit/Social Service organization to become part of CCIL; by using our services, being represented on our board, and/or by submitting Grant applications that include us.

·        Help to identify additional funding.

·        Let the appropriate groups in CCIL know what is preventing you from doing your job efficiently and lets see if we can improve the process.

 

 

IMPORTANT LINKS AND RESOURCES

List of Current needs within CCIL’s Staff:  http://ccil.org/~prez/info/tasklist.pdf

CCIL’s Annual Report for 2001:          http://ccil.org/~prez/info/2001annualreport.pdf

CCIL’s Budget for 2002:                      http://ccil.org/~prez/info/Budget2002.PDF

CCIL’s Statement of Activity YTD 2002 (Rev Nov 9, 2002):          http://ccil.org/~prez/info/PnL110902.PDF

CCIL’s Statement of Activity QTD 2002 (Rev Oct. 2002):          http://ccil.org/~prez/info/stateQTR1002.PDF

 

 

WHO DO I CONTACT IF I WANT TO VOLUNTEER:

 

Board of Directors – Send your letter of interest for serving on the Board of Directors to: CCILBoard@lists.ccil.org .  Please include some background information &/or a resume.

 

Application Builder – Send letter of interest to prez@ccil.org along with any particular projects that you may have in mind.

 

User Support Staff - Send a letter of interest to prez@ccil.org along with any particular areas in which you have special skills.

 

Bookkeeping/Tax Preparation -- Send your letter of interest to: CCILBoard@lists.ccil.org .  Please include some background information &/or a resume.

 

Joint Ventures – If you are part of a non-profit organization in which CCIL’s services can aid you in accomplishing your mission, send a letter of interest to prez@ccil.org along with any details.

 

 

 

 

 

History of CCIL

 

Our Humble Beginnings

1993 - Jordan Seidel, a young man in his early 20's, read about this "Internet" thing and decided that there should be an organization created in Chester County to ensure that Chester County Citizens are given equal access to this new (Internet) resource. He read how those without this technology would be at a disadvantage in the years ahead.

He searched and found Eric Raymond, a local "hacker", to write the program and do the technical work. He also assembled a board of directors of local people to help him to form a non-profit corporation.

Perry Pepper, the President of Chester County Hospital stepped forward and allowed him to use a dormitory room in the nurses quarters to house the equipment and gave a grant of $5000. West Chester University provided our first internet feed (19k bps) and a grant of $2600. 1st National Bank of Chester County provided a grant of $6000 to purchase the equipment and modems. Later on, a friend of Eric Raymond's (Avi Freedman) provided the a faster internet feed 56K, which was shared by all users!

1994 March - The system was launched. No graphics just text. It was a glorified BBS centered around a city metaphor. We didn't have users we had citizens. You information was not in the "system" directory it was on "technology place" and the place you changed your e-mail address was of course...the "Post Office". The early days were plagued with tremendous technical challenges and the system could be down for weeks at a time while we dealt with system crashes.

Expanding our reach

1995 October - we received our first grant from the Philadelphia Foundation to launch the "FreeLink" project. Jordan wanted to make sure that EVERYONE in the community could have access to the internet. The plan was to place computers in all the locations that people gather so that it would be convenient. We would provide the equipment, the phone lines and even the people to teach how to use it. This was a very ambitious goal with just volunteers and a small amount of money to purchase equipment and pay for all the phone lines. The initial Free Link sites included the YWCA, La Communidad Hispanica, WC Community Center, WC Senior Center, Avon Grove & WC Library, and the Coatesville Community Center.

Our hopes were to expand to many locations, however the concept did not take off as we had hoped. Accessing the Internet from public places was not something that generated great demand.

We continue to offer a limited number of public access sites. The most successful ones have been those with a dedicated volunteer leader and hold regular sessions. A good example is the West Chester Senior Center who's site is coordinated by Lou Mikleson. His group meets once a week to swap stories and to learn something new from Lou.

A change of place

1997 - We were met what seemed at the time our greatest challenge. The hospital needed us to move from the nurse's dormitory so they could remodel the building. Dr. Adler, the President of West Chester University stepped in and, not only provided us a room for our equipment, but gave us access to their fiber optic internet feed....10 feet from where it entered the campus. Needless to say our technical people were doing hand springs over this much connectivity this close to us. With this expanded connectivity we were able to launch graphics access shortly thereafter.

A new face

1999 - We received the volunteer efforts of a Lehigh University student, Jason Wood, who redesigned our web site and programmed many new interactive pages. We added user access to mailing lists. Also added was a new user interface for administering the system with non-technical volunteers.

Community Involvement

 

CCIL is very much more than just another Internet Service Provider, however. There are several organizations that have used our system for the good of the community.

  • The Chester County Homeless Shelters list vacancies so that others shelters can see were there might be an open bed that night.
  • The Chester County Cerebral Palsy Society has a support group that communicates by e-mail since many can not leave home.
  • We host the WC Senior Center's web page.
  • We host the web site for a local fire company, several churches, a soccer team, softball teams, we even hosted the West Chester Bicentennial web page last year. We hosted a web page for the West Chester PTOC to post information about the school board candidates.

For more information about our community involvement see the Friends of CCIL web page.

Chester County InterLink is one of the few remaining Free-Nets left in the nation. Very few places can boast that they have a volunteer organization providing access to the Internet for free and with out commercialization. Chester County is truly connected community.

 

About CCIL


"The mission of Chester County InterLink (CCIL) is to ensure that Chester County residents and organizations have easy and equitable electronic access to information while encouraging interaction among them as part of an electronic community." - CCIL Mission Statement

 

CCIL Vision Statement

 

CCIL's vision is to serve as an on-line community, enriching our real-life community by providing access to local and Internet information, promoting local development, and offering technology training. CCIL envisions this in three parts:

  1. ACCESS - CCIL envisions providing all citizens of Chester County with reliable access to electronic information that is of value to them regardless of their circumstance, prior skills, or financial means.
  2. COMMUNITY CONTENT - CCIL envisions hosting information important to the local community and providing an electronic public space for communication and debate.
  3. EDUCATION - CCIL envisions providing instruction to Chester County citizens in the areas of computer mediated communication and network literacy in order to better prepare them for life in the future.

CCIL's vision is to benefit all citizens of Chester County by providing access, community content, and education.

~Amended: 1/97


 

Important CCIL Contacts

Address Information

Chester County InterLink
c/o Chester County Hospital
701 East Marshall Street
West Chester, PA 19380

(610) 431-2673 (voice)
(610) 431-2839 (system access)
Additional access numbers can be found on our Access Listing page

 

 

 

CCIL Access to InterLink and the WWW

Dialup access has been expanded throughout Chester County by the help of a grant from THE PHILADELPHIA FOUNDATION. The following are a list of numbers and the areas they were designed to cover.

Number

Locations

Telephone Exchanges

(610) 431-2839

Main dialup number, West Chester

any not listed below

(610) 380-0909

Wallace/Glenmoore, Honey Brook, Parkesburg

942, 273, 857

(610) 458-1030

Wallace/Glenmoore, Pughtown, East Coventry/Royersford, Phoenixville

942, 469, 495, 415, 917, 933, 935, 983

(610) 869-2066

Kemblesville, Oxford, Parkesburg

255, 932, 988, 857

If you do not have an account you may use these numbers to sign up for one or fill out our online form. Please note that accounts are available only to those who reside or work in Chester County.