VCN & THE GREAT CANADIAN GIVING CHALLENGE (GCGC)

This year VCN be participating in the Great Canadian Giving Challenge (GCGC), a National public contest to benefit any registered Canadian charity.

Every $1 donated to on CanadaHelps.org or givingchallenge.ca, automatically enters the charity to win a $10,000.

Starting on June 1^st, support the VCN’s ongoing work in the community to bridge the digital divide!

VANCOUVER COMMUNITY NETWORK SOCIAL 

VCN is organizing a meet-up event on June 09^th, 2015.

Over drinks, we’ll gather to discuss Vancouver’s nonprofit tech community, ‘open source’, the meaning of ‘free’ when talking about the need for donation/membership dues, exchange knowledge between VCN members, and learn about the VCN Tech Team services.

Light refreshments will be provided.

When: June 09, 2015, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Where: Billy Bishop Legion (19+)

1407 Laburnum Street, Vancouver, BC

Register to the meet-up here:

http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/vcn-social-tickets-17174702999?aff=es2

SPRING CLEANING!

VCN’s Tech Team has been monitoring email accounts and is planning to deactivate accounts that have been inactive for more than 1 year.

This means that new email addresses will be freed up in the coming months.

If you would like to sign-up for another VCN account please go to:

https://www2.vcn.bc.ca/sign-up/email-sign-up-for-individuals/

100 in 1 day PUBLIC WORKSHOP at MPNH

100 in 1 Day is returning on Saturday June 6th, 2015. People of all ages and backgrounds will be uniting to participate in workshops and share their visions for a better city.

Learn, meet people, and develop your urban intervention with a series of free workshops.

For more details: https://vancouver.100in1day.ca

 To register: http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/100-in-1-day-public-workshop-mount-pleasant-neighbourhood-house-registration-15790338327

MEMBERSHIPS AND DONATIONS

Remember VCN counts on you to either pay your yearly membership ($15) and/or making a donation helps us to support the entire system. Any amount helps and we will issue email a tax receipt in January. Please commit to keeping this valuable resource available into the future.

PDF VERSION

On Wednesday, April 29th at 9am a network switch had a hardware failure. All VCN services were down. At 11:15am, the problem was resolved and all VCN services were restored. During the afternoon, some VCN services may have been down for a few seconds while new network hardware was added. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

PDF Version

ANNOUNCING!

TECH|TEAM MOVES TO WOODWARD’S HERITAGE BUILDING

VCN Tech|Team has been relocated to the beautiful Woodward’s Building at 111 West Hastings Street, Second Floor.

Drop-in for free access to computers and the Internet.  It is open to the community from 10am to 4pm Monday to Friday, with technicians on hand to provide solutions to your technical issues. For help with your personal computer call the Technical Help Desk first. It’s freely available by appointment.

2015 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

VCN held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on February 20, 2015, with a quorum including 4 board members, 3 staff, 4 VCN volunteers, plus 12 regular members.

Highlights of 2013-14

• hired our first Executive Director
• speed of internet connection
• true cost of “Free” at VCN
• VCN’s move to digital archives
• VCN’s social enterprise development of VCN Innovation Labs
• Worked toward launch of “Telling Our Stories” an interactive website which hosts 60+ personal stories and videos of people growing up in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s in the Grandview Woodlands, Strathcona and Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.  See http://www.seniorsstories.vcn.bc.ca
• developed the Street Messaging System (see the next page for more information on this project).

SHORT FILM ON VCN’S STREET MESSAGING SYSTEM

In today’s information age, access to ICTs is essential. The Street Messaging System (SMS) is a unique and instant way of connecting people experiencing poverty and/or homelessness to services available. The SMS actively sends accessible, reliable, and informative text messages into the hands of those that need it most.

The short film was funded, by Telus for the Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society’s Play It Forward program, VCN collaborated with filmmaker Anna Christina Waters to create a short film to educate the public, providers, and funders on the SMS. The commissioned film, featuring Homeless Advocate Judy Graves, is available online and will be available for free on the TELUS OptikTM TV.

See it now at http://www.vcn.bc.ca

VCN INTERN MAGAZINE NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE!

The third VCN Intern Magazine is now available online. This issue was produced for the Industry Canada-funded 2014-15 Youth Internship program, and documents the work of interns at their placements and highlights the incredible work that their organizations are doing in the community. It serves as a platform to showcase the diverse voices of interns from graphic designers to creative writers to journalists. Interns produced pieces that spoke on issues relating to bridging the digital divide and community development with a particular focus on Community Based Learning.

Download it in PDF format (7MB)
http://yid.vcn.bc.ca/files/2015/03/web_quality-pdf-volume-3-vcn-magazine1.pdf
VCN is a non-profit organization and needs to raise just over $150,000 a year in order to operate. We rely exclusively on sponsorship, grant and your donations to get there.

Please consider donating to the VCN. Your tax-deductible gift of $25 or more will ensure we can keep delivering much needed programs.

By becoming a member or renewing your membership, or making a cash donation, you help ensure the long-term sustainability of an organization dedicated to ensuring everyone in our community has access to the Internet since 1993.

A sincere thank you to our renewing and new members. We couldn’t do it without you!

VCN will be closed on Friday, April 3rd and Monday, April 6th. VCN will open on Tuesday, April 7th.

The DSPAM spam filter login issue was fixed on Thursday, March 19th. The issue was related to the dial-up authentication issue because they use the same authentication service.

On Wednesday, March 18th at 1am the dial-up authentication server had a hardware failure. The backup authentication server was unable to properly authenticate people because of a software error. The backup authentication server was fixed on Wednesday, March 18th around midnight. If you have any questions or additional issues please call 778-724-0826 extension 0 for assistance. Please note that we have a higher than normal call volume. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

VPL has informed VCN that on Thursday, March 19th at 11:59pm there will be a scheduled power outage at VPL. VCN’s servers are hosted at VPL so all our services will be affected. VCN will be powering down servers between 10pm and 11:59pm. On Friday, March 20th starting at 10am the servers will be powered on. Please call 778-724-0826 extension 0 or email [email protected] if you have any issues or questions.

On Wednesday, February 25, 2015, we experienced issues with our dial up service. Internet connectivity with dial up was not working. Users were able to connect to local services such as their VCN email but external websites would not have worked. This issue was fixed at 11:50am. We are currently monitoring the situation.

The 2014 tax receipt have been emailed out. If you did not receive your 2014 tax receipt, would like to request a physical tax receipt mailed to you, or opt-out of a digital tax receipt please call 778-724-0826 extension 0 or email [email protected].

On Wednesday, January 28, 2015, at 8:30am, we experienced issues with our dial up service. Internet connectivity with dial up was not working. Users were able to connect to local services such as their VCN email but external websites would not have worked. This issue was fixed at 10:45am but recurred at 11:30am. The issue was fixed at 1:00pm. We are currently monitoring the situation.