MINUTES OF THE CARPENTERS ESTATE WIRED UP COMMUNITIES PROJECT STEERING GROUP MEETING

MONDAY 21st January 2002

 

1.       IN ATTENDANCE

2.       APOLOGIES

Jan Bless  - Carpenters School

Satnam Boll – WUC

John Defoe  - CICT, LBN

Tee Fabikun – TMO

Carole Gilligan – Media Trust

Leighton Hughes – MASE

Annie Keane  - Media Trust

Hammad Khan  - WUC

Pallavi Malhotra –Newham College

Richard Overton – Internet Vision

Graham Pragnell – Head of Education ICT, LBN Linda Salim – TMO

Rick Smith – DFES

Richard Stubbs – Newham.net

Brian Taylor – CICT, LBN

Steve Tyler           - MASE

 

Richard Steel – Head ICT, LBN

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1.           Minutes of Last meeting and Matters arising

1.1     Richard Stubbs chaired the meeting in the absence of Richard Steel. The meeting was called to order and self-introduction was made. 

1.2     Minutes of the last meeting were distributed and agreed

1.3     (4.1) The claim to the DfES for expenditure incurred so far by the Council had not been submitted as the Council officer concerned had been absent from work due to sickness and holidays.

1.4     (4.2) The End User Licence Agreement with respect to the service was being re-drafted by Internet Vision to take into account legal and operational matters overlooked in the previous draft.

1.5     (4.3) The DfES project Board Meeting was planned for 29th January but due to time restrictions would be reduced in scope.

 

2.          Technical progress

 

2.1     As usual Richard Stubbs gave out a detailed written report, which he also explained. There was concern that although the trenching contract was substantially complete there were a lot of areas where a minor amount of final works needed to be carried out before fibre could be installed.  A similar problem was delaying the installation of fibre in Lund Point where there was no clear route into the server room. Lund Point will be the starting point for the wiring and connectivity of the whole Estate and it was vital that we could start testing there soon..

2.2    Linda raised the issue of language support and asked if there would be overlays for the keyboards. Steve Tyler said that this would be very unlikely for the small living room keyboards although there were also normal office sized keyboards where this could be used. However the main problem was whether or not the character sets for different languages could be supported by, for instance, the PC on your TV service and this would need to be discussed with C>Ways which were going to be responsible for this area of the service.

2.3     Rick Smith reported that there had been contractual delays with the College but that a specification for the equipment to be based in the Learn Direct Centre should be produced. Richard Overton to lead on production.

 

3.          Media Trust – participation and promotion

3.1     Media Trust had an open day on Sat 19th Jan. Loads of questions were asked and as a result, another open day will likely be held.

3.2     Agreed to focus on particular blocks as and when delivery of STBs to the residents starts starts.

3.3     Agreed to hold public meeting on the project once the TMO hall had a fibre link and the projector system had been installed as this would make it possible to demonstrate what was available rather than just describe it.

3.4     Hamad to start work on producing a list of Frequently Asked Questions.

3.5     It was agreed that a decision should be made on the location of the Media Trust run edit suite by the end of the week.

3.6     Agreed that a name for the overall project and community channel needed to be agreed as soon as possible. TMO and Media Trust to liase. Request for suggestions going into TMO newsletter.

3.7     Brian Taylor pointed out that sustainability of the project would depend greatly on mutual support and that the development of an estate user group was crucial.

3.8     Hamad to write specification for user support

3.9     Hamad to lead on production of leaflet.

3.10  Need to discuss how resident drop in support will be delivered. Depends in part where Satnam is based and this still needs to be resolved. TMO and Media Trust to liase.

3.11   Pallavi said that NCFE could organise estate based training but would need indication of likely demand.

 

4.          Content progress

 

4,1        DkTV

All video and interactive content is now in our possession. The interactive service will need to be tailored to work on our system but this should be straightforward once Internet Vision has finished their work on the interface which uses a very similar menu system. Richard Stubbs liasing with Tony Klinger re MCPS licence issues.

4.2        Start Here

Pending testing of upgraded set top box operating system and Internet link to estate.

4.3            Enfocast

Noted that this was aimed solely at PCs and thus would not be useful for the WuC project.

4.4        Estate Portal
Technological aspect o be developed by Internet Vision  Will support “chat” and email discussion.

4.5        Media Trust videos

                MT to liase with College on possible student involvement in production of video material.

4.6        Plato

All the materials have been delivered to Richard’s office.

4.7            Microsoft Office

                Richard Stubbs still to organise purchase of licence.

4.8        Other leads

It was noted that the. East London Film Festival and Four Corners might be a source of material for broadcast on the network. Granada Learning was involved with Brampton WuC. Richard Stubbs had asked for contact info. Still waiting for a definitive reply from Yes TV but not looking promising.

 

 

5.          Management Progress.

 

5.1        End User Licence Agreement

Part of agreement with regard to Newham council and equipment completed but Newham.net and service aspect being redrafted by IVision. Discuss at next meeting..

 

5.2               Grant agreement and financial issues

Richard Stubbs to put in claim to DfES. SRB need write up  for evaluation and next years grant. Brian Taylor, Linda Salim and Richard Stubbs to liase.

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6.          Project Management

6.1                 Timetable
Agreed to aim for a mid May public launch though also agreed not to go public on a date until we had the service up and running and knew we could deliver. We need to discuss how the launch will be managed and we agreed to discuss this further in February.

6.2               Key issues

It was noted that these had not changed since the previous month. The problem of deploying the set top boxes looked to be the matter involving the greatest amount of labour. Agreed that we would probably need another installer to work alongside Hammad starting in March. Linda Salim to investigate possible funding via SRB.

6.3               Project Board Meeting

DfEs will be visiting the Estate on Tues 29th Feb to have a look around and also assess the work  Arrangements for this were discussed and agreed.

 

7.          Associated Projects

7.1            Carpenters School

Jan Bless gave a report on progress. White boards are now in place and teachers and students alike are pleased with the new teaching technology. One good thing is that work can be saved and also shared with other schools.The staff are currently undergoing courses on how to use the White Boards and had started using the interactive white boards in lessons. The school had a 75” white board for the Hall and 60” ones in classrooms. Staff also had the use of laptops. Everything was going very well.

7.2            Cyberangels.

Meeting to be held after end of this meeting. Parry Aftab would be present.

To reduce need to produce another set of minutes the main decisions that came from this meeting are included here.

a.                Provisionaldate for Cyberangels training and filming 10th – 15th March

b.                   LBN to meet cost Brian Taylor to sort out.

c.                   Brian to contact Gavin Sealey about this

d.                   Media Trust to organise filming

7.3            Hansard Society

                Media Trust are meeting with LBN also to be involved. Brian Taylor to discuss with Richard Steel.

7.4            TrueVote

No update on progress available.

7.5               3D Democracy

No news from LGA on progress of this bid

7.6               Sure Start

No recent contact about scheme.

8.      AOB

8.1            Community Event

John Defoe outlined a borough wide event that was being held on 9th Feb and asked whether it would be possible to put up information about the WuC project. Noted that we did not have any publicity information as yet.

8.2        Travel expenses

Rick Smith would get forms sent to Richard Stubbs.

 

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Next meeting will be:

Date: Mon 18th Feb ‘02

Time: 3pm

Place: Carpenters TMO’s Office Hall