Marilyn Taylor's Field Reports

Good Workshops by CCN

Marilyn Taylor — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:13:10 -0600

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a couple of workshops that I found helpful for my organization:

Outcomes Evaluation
Hosting an Open House

The Outcomes Evaluation was especially good since it gave me insight into how to help write grants for our organization. Most of my help with grant writing has been editing the grant for spelling and grammar errors and checking to ensure that the questions asked in the grants were answered. Now I'll be able to help with actual writing.

Finally enjoying updating database

Marilyn Taylor — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:55:56 -0600

We lost the 2 workers, so I've been going through the service listings one by one, checking them to make sure the links work, adding links if none exist. I've been enjoying the internet searches connected with this task and have been learning about all the resources available.

Updating Service Listings

Marilyn Taylor — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:42:37 -0600

I'm still working on updating the service listings in our database. I now have help from 2 workers from the Goodwill, Leslie and Ipo. They are checking the web links to make sure they work and are current and passing the updates to be made onto me. They are also looking for new resources to add to the database since they're both used to searching for social services online. It's been fun working with them.

Updating Listings

Marilyn Taylor — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:48:28 -0600

I have a long project right now of verifying that the resources listed on each of the 37 sets of county listings have the correct phone number and website, if any. This is one project I'm enjoying because I like doing Google searches and reading about the organizations I research. I also realize the importance of having the correct information on our county portals for anyone needing help with social services.

August 30, 2007

Marilyn Taylor — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:04:11 -0600

The past few weeks have been busy. I continued tweaking our database entries. Also, I've spent time training a new employee how to use Word and do Google searches. I also helped her set up a Yahoo e-mail account. She's new to computers, so it's been quite interesting training someone with no experience.

Week 3

Marilyn Taylor — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:56:39 -0600

The 3rd week had more updating for the www.4people.org website. I completed updating the county listings for Eastern Washington and started on the county listings for Western Washington (Clark, Clallam, Grays Harbor got done -- started on Island county on Friday).

My eyes are swimming and I sure do wish I had Kedit. It's so much more powerful than Notepad and doesn't screw up the href links to websites like other editors do. I'm still considering buying a license since the test version only allows me to edit files containing no more than 75 lines of text.

While the work has been tedious, it's been necessary. Our I&R system is getting cleaned up in this process.

Week 2 of My Vista Year

Marilyn Taylor — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 08:15:09 -0600

Week 2 of my VISTA year was more of the same from the first week. I'm still working on cleaning up the service listings for the counties on the 4People website. While tedious, it's rewarding knowing that when people look at the county listings, they'll be more accurate with regard to the exterior links. (www.4people.org)

One nice thing is that much of the work is done by telecommuting. Last week I went in to the office only two days: one to collect the mail, the other to discuss how the clean-up project was going. Misty (the other Vista) collected the mail 2 other days.

On a personal note, I found out my horse has laminitis. It's a good thing I brought her home -- she had been put on pasture for too long, too soon (one of the causes of laminitis is too rich a diet, such as too much pasture right after being on hay only). Now she's on dry lot and can't go onto the pasture all summer (bummer). I have to find a source of hay since I can only buy so many bales from my neighbor.

Week 1 (or my eyes are swimming)

Marilyn Taylor — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:51:56 -0600

I've completed my 1st week of work, all done by telecommuting. The work has been tedious -- I've been updating the county service listings and directories in the 4people database, www.4People.org . In the process I learned a little bit of HTML and more about MS Word. Boy, are my eyes swimming!

First Day at PSO

Marilyn Taylor — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 14:28:11 -0600

Today was the 1st day of PSO. Mostly, we had meetings and filled out paperwork. It was nice to discover that not everyone was right out of college. A few of us had several years of work under our belts. Even my roommate had years of experience in teaching and photojournalism.

Digressing a bit, it certainly is warm and humid. It made for a sleepless night last night since there was no air conditioning. It gets warm in eastern Washington state, but the humidity there is in the teens rather than the eighties. I also have air conditioning at home.