• Bonnie Lincoln (USA) - Discussion: Communications in India 18 October
• Triveni Mathur (India) - Communications Discussion 17 October
• Mina Singh (India) - Re: Communications Discussion 17 October
• Rose Beatty, President CFUW (Canada) - Communications Discussion 16 October
• Marian Ennis, IFUW Hegg Hoffet Committee (Canada) - Communications Discussion 16 October
• Mary Scott, IFUW Connections Moderator (Canada) - More on Communications 16 October
• Mary Trounson, (New Zealand) - Communications Discussion 16 October
• Dorothy Meyer, IFUW Status of Women Committee (New Zealand) - Communications Week 2 15 October
• Leigh Bradford Ratteree, IFUW Staff (Geneva, Switzerland) - Communications Discussions 14 October
• María-Elisa Zorriqueta (Spain) Week 2 - Communication Discussion 11 October
  

Bonnie Lincoln (USA) - Discussion: Communications in India 18 October

I was intrigued to read that our members in India experience delays as long as ten days in communicating via e-mail. Here in the U.S., we find that many computer support services, such as the help desk for our internet service provider, are actually performed in India. For example, when I send AOL an e-mail asking for help with a problem the answer comes back--usually in seconds--from someone who is apparently in India. This is known here as "outsourcing".

It had not occurred to me that with all this expertise, the Indian system should not be functioning smoothly!
 

I am Triveni Mathur from University Women's Association, Pune, India and have joined the communications network only recently and this is my first email to the network. A brief introduction: I am a trained journalist and have worked for a leading Indian news agency and newspapers. Now, I teach journalism and communication to leading media and management institutes in Pune. I have recently submitted my doctoral research on "Internet Journalism" to the University of Pune.

I have been reading the discussions but took a little time to join it.

Talking about effective communication, within our organisation, we mainly communicate through the newsletter of which I am, presently, the editor. Besides, we do communicate through phone calls or direct mailers in case there is some information to be disemminated and has not been published in the newsletter. However, emails are not being extensively used. Regular programmes for members is yet another platform to network and exchange ideas.

The newsletter also contains information about IFUW announcements as well as IFUWA (Indian Federation of University Women's Association) programmes and relevant inputs

We have a web presence: http://www.uwapune.org/

I must admit that emails, though the most convenient, is yet to catch on. I have been trying to promote the usage of the email through periodic announcements in the printed newsletter (Being a professsional journalist, I think the print medium still does the trick!!) requesting members to send in their articles for the newsletter through emails.

I propose to also announce this "connections network" through the forthcoming newsletter so that more of our members could participate in these discussions.

Well, I don't know if we need any workshops, I think it is basically the mindset that probably restricts the usage of the Internet particularly by the seniors. Connectivity in India is not much of a problem now. Some of our senior members do use the Internet very effectively,though.

Please visit our website which gives a peek into our activities here.

I would just like to mention that one of the main reasons I joined the UWA Pune was because I was exposed to its activities during the three-year period (1985 - 1988) that I stayed in the Hostel managed by UWA, Pune. It was a memorable period of my academic years in Pune having come from faraway North Eastern Indian state of Assam.

Looking forward to interesting and informative discussions through this network.

Mina Singh (India) Re: Communications Discussion 17 October

I'm responding in my personal capacity to your questions. Of the near dozen executive members of the UWA of Delhi, all except one have email. I think the cost of buying a computer at her advanced aged is preventing the last of our managing committee colleagues from getting hooked up. However, response via email is slow. A ten day lag is normal (my friends from abroad expect me to answer within 48 hours). Half are dependent on husbands or children to log on or fix glitches, as most have dial-up connections. Two have broadband, which costs more and is billed monthly. The dial-up is pre-paid and without a monthly charge.

At the national level, there is an official website and email networking between at least ten branches of the Indian Federation, but information about the activities of the branches is given in hard copies (in the form of official reports and the branchs' quarterly Newsletters). The Indian Federation has its own Newsletter which is sent out to the branch President or Association Representative for distribution (one copy for each member). However, because of the high cost of postage, these Newsletters are not posted to each member. Hence, bottlenecks occur and national level views, news and actions do not filter down to the individual members of the local branch seamlessly. The result is a lack of flow down the pyramid. The flow up is certainly disabled. The internet is the only two-way channel provider---but the communication between the individual member and the national executive down-up is as yet a mere trickle.

In answer to your first question, yes, IFUW info is disseminated but not very well

Second question, the exec members of the branches hear about what is happening in other branches within the country, but not so much the ordinary members: they don't show much interest generally because of the size of our country, and regional differences, or general apathy.

Third question, our branches do have email networks. In response to Kathleen's Communications Discussion Point 3, IFUW can ask individual members to sign up to receive international news. This will broaden their horizon, make members more knowledgeable about important international issues facing women, and prevent vested interests from monopolising/controlling and then cashing in on the flow of info from IFUW to NFAs. Personally, I have found IFUW training handbooks very useful. We ought to have a handbook now on new communication strategies.

Rose Beatty, President CFUW (Canada) - Communications Discussion 16 October

In the Canadian Federation of Uniuversity Women, we do send out information regularly about CFUW and IFUW. This is done through national mailings of information, through our national newsletter, through personal visits to Clubs in Canada, and in written reports.

As CFUW has consultative status in ECOSOC (Status of Women) and representation in UNESCO's Canadian Commission (education section), we have a close tie and commitment to international work. We send representatives to the related meetings and report back to our members.

Our Clubs get visibility throughout the CFUW in our national newsletter, provincial or regional newsletters, and through all the web sites that Clubs have and the national web site. At our Annual Meeting, special recognition
through awards are presented to Clubs who have had outstanding community projects. This is another way we share work done by Clubs across Canada. Each of our 5 regions has a specific Vice President and also Regional Directors who help to disperse information and answer questions when asked.

The other way we provide information is through the National Office and e-mails that come to the CFUW President, CIR, the Executive Director and other Board members.

All in all, I believe that in CFUW, we have a very wide network in sharing of information for our membership of over 10,000 members.  

Marian Ennis, IFUW Hegg Hoffet Committee (Canada) - Communications Discussion 16 October

Just a few additions to Mary's comments from Canada. Because of the huge distances, I think the telephone is probably used more than in smaller countries, especially for national or provincial executive meetings via
conference calls. Broadband Internet access is very common in North Vancouver, and many of our older members have had to learn to use a computer if they ever want to hear from their grandchildren :-) . For people
on low incomes, many Canadian libraries provide public computers with free Internet access, although there is a small charge for printouts and usage is limited to 30 minutes per day if other people are waiting.
 
We do send out minutes and reminders and more than half of local branch newsletters out via email (eight times per year), and our newsletters often contain some national and international items of interest. Members have the option to receive a hard copy version if they prefer. Some members were receiving the newsletter via fax, but that has mostly been replaced by email. National newsletters are available on the national website, and are sent by email to national and provincial leaders and anyone else who requests to be added to the list. In British Columbia, we have a provincial council that sends out its own newsletter about four times a year, mostly via email.
 
One advantage of reading newsletters on the computer is that older members can set their monitors to display everything in larger type sizes, without the newsletter editors having to do any reformatting. Many websites
can also be viewed this way, unless the website designer has specifically restricted the way the text can be displayed.
 
Our branch exchanges newsletters with a few other branches, which gives us an additional source of ideas for activities, speakers, interest groups, fundraisers, etc.

We do find that holding national and provincial CFUW meetings once per year (in different areas each year) helps members to get to know each other and share experiences and ideas in person, but not everyone can
afford the time or costs required for these meetings, so the Internet has been very useful for our affiliate's widely-dispersed members to keep in touch. Our local branch has a formal business meeting, often including some
sort of presentation by outside speakers, once per month. But we have a lot of smaller interest groups that meet at other times. For example, our walking group gets together weekly for interesting rambles, our Community
Affairs discussion group meets once per month, the bridge group plays twice a month, etc. So sometimes communication takes place by word of mouth or via informal networks. We have a local branch interest group for members to learn about and discuss computer-related topics, mostly focussed on the Internet but
including other new technology such as digital cameras. This group meets about every six weeks, and the more experienced members often do a lot of explaining and demonstrating or problem-solving. But even the group members new to the technology can often tell us about interesting websites they have discovered, or uses for a computer that we may not have encountered.

Mary Scott, IFUW Connections Moderator (Canada) More on Communications 16 October

I hope you are all well in your part of the world. I'm not really the one to respond on behalf of our NFA, CFUW, but I can respond as a member of a Club, the University Women's Club of Winnipeg. There are, at last count, 122 clubs in our Association. You can see more at http://www.cfuw.org - they have a great web site.

This is quite an old NFA, and our Club was one of the founders back in 1919, so means of communication were certainly different, and have evolved over the years, to take into account what a large country Canada is, and what a diverse population. Present membership in the NFA is around 10,000.

Our Club also has a House (Ralph Connor House), so there are many opportunities for members to gather and we do offer an amazing number of interesting programs, personal interest activities and courses. I just wish I could take in more! We do have a web site at: http://www.uwc-wpg.mb.ca.

There is a regional Council made up of the 3 Clubs in our Province, called CFUW Manitoba Council. We get together a couple of times a year. Other provinces, such as Ontario and BC have many more Clubs and meetings do provide a good way of connecting.

One of the advantages of having a membership based organization is that when an important issue comes forward, and we have a resolution on it, we can alert our members to take immediate action, which can be quite effective. Communication is important to mobilize our members, and it has been done recently in Ontario.

So communication is a challenge. With that background, I will try and respond to the questions this week.

1. What are the methods of communicating within your association or federation that works the best in disseminating information to the members?

We use all methods - paper, phone (conference calls), in person meetings, electronic, web based. All work so am not sure what works best, I suppose the person to person does, but that is not always possible. Our Club does have an excellent newsletter that comes out 9 times a year, and that is a good way of ensuring all our members have the news about local, national and international activities. Our Communications/PR person does an excellent job of sending our e-bulletins with reminders or updates about activities that are happening at our Club House. As a member of the IFUW SWC, I do send items periodically to the Bulletin, for example, the recent letter from Griselda Kenyon, giving an update on IFUW. I think communication at the local level is very important to increase membership and retain membership.

There is concern such as expressed by Mary Trounson, that not all members have access to computers, nor the interest or time. We do have a House, so we can have reports on CFUW at our meetings, and there is a CFUW Bulletin Board where we can disseminate information as well.

2. How could communication be improved within your association or federation?

I think CFUW is working on this quite well. I believe the Board is developing a Strategic Plan, and they may wish to respond to this question. With print and electronic news letters, access thru the web site, meetings, CFUW is doing a number of things. There is strong support at the national level for supporting 2 way communication. I believe most Clubs have a board position called CFUW Liaison, and the function for that position is to receive all CFUW Communication and distribute it to members, and as well, send news items to CFUW.

3. What suggestions do you have for tools or training by IFUW that might help your association or federation improve connections among the members?

Not sure what training CFUW needs in terms of communications for CFUW members. There is a fair amount of expertise amongst our members. I think the links with other NFAs is important so the more tools there are to accommodate that the better. I have always found that people learn best when there is a real task to be done, or the training is done with a clear purpose in mind. I also believe that support should be continued with our younger members, and support for the means of communicating that they find works best for them.

That's my thoughts on this week's questions Kathleen. Looking forward to continuing the dialogue.

Mary Trounson, CIR, NZFGW (New Zealand) Communications Discussion 16 October

My name is Mary Trounson. I live in Wellington, New Zealand (NZ) and am the CIR on the National Executive. I joined the communications network after the Perth conference.

My apologies for not joining the discussion earlier. I am a self employed Database Developer and mother of two boys - one a teenager and the other not far from it. The younger one also has Asperger's Syndrome and to top it all off school holidays were on when the discussion started.

Dorothy Meyer as pretty much filled the list in on how NZFGW communicates except that the Exec meets 11 times a year and the branches do all received hard copy as well as electronic copy of the Nat Exec News. Information is also send out electronically to branches if a response is required urgently and the request falls between editions of Nat Exec News or information needs to reach the branch urgently. Our secretary also produces the Nat Exec News for one of our older members in a larger font size so that she can read it.

The branch I am a member of, has an email list and all members have the choice of an electronic or hardcopy branch newsletter. This list is also useful in that information etc is emailed out to members on the list between newsletters where necessary. Another branch has an email list for its young members only.

The biggest barriers to our members being informed comes down to members not having access to the internet. There is so much information available now it is too expensive and time consuming to produce everything in hardcopy and send by snail mail. As CIR I often have to summarise in my report and point members to the appropriate website for downloading documents or reading the full reports.

This leads onto a situation of electronic divide. We have different levels of connectivity in NZ. While I and some others on the Exec do have broadband we are aware that many members are still on dialup links which are much slower. Why are they still on dialup? - its much cheaper and all that is available in some rural parts of the country. In remote areas some of these links are not always reliable. And of course there are those that do not have computers and are never likely to. Thus we have some of us who are so connected that we avoid snail mail wherever possible, those who avoid electronic communication and every degree in between.

Many also only have email accessibility at work only. This means that it is to always easy to receive non work related email, and in some cases it can be blocked.

There is also the problem that there is so much coming that it is not always read particularly with the busy lives we all lead juggling work, family and voluntary commitments. Some email is also incorrectly caught up in spam filters by ISPs or work email filtering programs. It may be better to use a bulletin board rather than an email list. A person could be emailed only after receiving a response to a message they posted. Also all postings are available for reading at any time and therefore messages are not lost via spam filters, or accidental deletion.

Dorothy Meyer, IFUW Status of Women Committee (New Zealand) - Communications Week 2 15 October

One of the advantages of being a geographically small nation is that communications can be much easier.

The National Executive of NZFGW meets monthly for 10 months of the year and following each meeting issues a "National Executive News". This includes a message from the President, on a national and/or an international issue; reports from the Public Affairs Convener and the CIR and possibly the Membership secretary, the Treasurer and the Awards Convener. The Public Affairs report includes information about national issues on which some Branches may be working or for which they may be interested in having information; the CIR report will include the latest information from IFUW, the IFUW website, international awards and fellowships, IFUW committee reports. The CIR report may also include reports of work being carried out by branches that relates to IFUW policy e.g. Violence against women. The Treasurer and/or the Fellowship Trust Board Secretary Treasurer may include information about national awards and fellowships. All of this information is also available on the NZFGW website - www.nzfgw.org.nz Some branches have their own website or are in the process of establishing a website.

The aim with this Newsletter is to get it to Branches in time for them to include information in their own branch newsletter. Each Branch who publishes a newsletter is asked to forward a copy of this to the National Exec. Branch newsletters also include details about their meetings and activities and information about community events at local or national level. Some larger branches assist smaller branches to meet the cost of producing a newsletter, even if it isn't monthly.

The National Executive NEWS is now published electronically unless a Branch asks for a hard copy and individual members may also request to receive it electronically from the National Secretary. In the Branch that I belong to members can receive the NE NEWS electronically from the Branch and I understand that this happens in other Branches as well.

Once year the National Executive publishes a magazine, "Graduate Women", which includes articles of local, national and international interest, and information about the NZFGW Fellows (about 10-12 per year)

It would be my view that NZFGW members are well served with communication at all levels and there is little reason for members not to be aware of NZFGW activities at local, national and global levels either electronically or with hard copy.

I hope others will share how they 'communicate' within their NFA, Branch/Club.

Kathleen's topic this week is looking at the flow of information and discussion within national affiliates. Some of the questions which interest me are whether individual members are receiving IFUW through their national federations and associations? Do you hear about what is happening in other branches within your country?
Do any of your national affiliates have e-mail networks for those who wish to sign up to receive information about national and international happenings?

María-Elisa Zorriqueta - President Biscay Association (Spain) Week 2 Communication Discussion 11 October

Here are the answers from the Association of University Women of Biscay, Spain to the questions included by Kathleen Laurila in the Second Communication Discussion

1. What are the methods of communicating within your association or
federation that work the best in disseminating information to the
members.

It depends. Activities and programmes, through monthly letters, phone calls and the newsletters. If we want to encourage people to get involved in activities or share ideas, monthly meetings and lunches are better.

2. How could communication be improved within your association or federation?

Without any doubt the access of all members to the internet would mean a great improvement in the communications among members but this is a dream right now.

3. What suggestions do you have for tools or training by IFUW that might help your association or federation improve connections among the members?

Besides the difficulty that having a computer and an internet connection means to many members of our Association, some others think that an internet connections would bring to their lifes only extra difficulties and
worries. I think that a letter from IFUW President, or other IFUW authority, to encourage members to join IFUW connections and to use the internet would help to change members' point of views.

Comments of Summary of Week 1 Communications Dicussion

With respect to the fact that a network in Spanish language would require at least one volunteer to be the coordinator/moderator, in our Association there are only three members who use the internet,
including myself. I can ask the other two if they would like to o that work but they will need to be trained. Would that be possible?