Phone# 914-339-0013

ID: 433-248-184

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CRRA DEVELOPMENT / COMMUNICATIONS
COMMITTEE AGENDA

Thursday, March 15, 2012
11:00 – 12:00pm

Dial in:
Phone# 914-339-0013
ID: 433-248-184
GoToMeeting: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/join/433248184

Agenda
1. (11:00 – 11:01) Approve minute
2. (11:01 – 11:02) Membership Count as of 1/18/12
• Current Membership: 283
Southern (80), Central (118), Northern (56), Out of State (14), No designation (14)
3. (11:03 – 11:15) Exhibit Display and Materials (Tracie)
• Need to come up with a list of what we will need
4. (11:15 – 11:35) Website (Tracie)

Next meeting: 3rd Thursday of each month: April 19, 2012 from 11:00-12:00pm
________________________________________________________________________

#4 – Website Update
From Bob Hollis:
1. If you add one set of back-up files the site size increases to more than 29GB. (Back-ups
are compressed to 12GB)
2. So every time I try to make a local back-up it includes transferring 33GB of data, which
takes forever (overnight) and taxes bandwidth.
3. After I did a back-up the site it went down for a few minutes due to exceeding
bandwidth limitations.
4. Short-term Solution
1. I created a site back-up and downloaded the files to my hard drive
2. I installed Akeeba-pro
3. Created and Amazon S3 cloud storage account
4. Installed and configured Akeeba-pro to back-up the site to Amazon S3 bucket instead
of the server
5. Completed a full site back-up to the Amazon S3 bucket
5. Intermediate-term solution
Most of the site files that are taking up so much space are presentations, graphics, and
audio files from conferences that are rarely accessed. I would recommend storing these
types of files in cloud storage and using absolute urls in the site. This would make the
site much more manageable, it would be more secure for back-ups, and it would be
much more cost-effective than using server space for all of these files. For example,
a 50GB Drop-box account is only $99 per year, while 50GB of VPS server space costs
almost that much per month.
6. Immediate solution re branding

7. Upgrade from 1.5 to 1.7
After speeding some time with the site I think it needs more than just an upgrade, and
an upgrade can become complicated based on extensions currently being used and their
compatibility with joomla 1.7. An extension called jupgrade automates the upgrade
process from 1.5 to 1.7, but it can't do anything about incompatible modules.

I also think the site structure and storage issued should be addressed, and that there
should be a related discussion with the DevCom re joomla extensions needed to serve
each group etc.

I do not think it is a good idea to try to rush the technology side to meet the current
deadlines of the design/branding roll-out. Nor do I think the tech needs are critical
enough to delay roll-out.

I upgraded 3 themes from 1.5 to 1.7 over the weekend and none of them took more
than 20 minutes, so if we have to incur additional costs for upgrading the theme after
upgrading to 1.7 I think they would likely be less than the cost of trying to rush the
technology upgrade right now.
8. Bottom-line
David can now create the dev site he wants on the server to which he currently has
access in the staging folder that I left intact. The joomla 1.7 upgrade can wait until after
a devcom discussion and does not need to delay branding roll out.

#6 - Membership List
The main issues regarding how we display/provide member information should be addressed
by the DevCom and result in a policy we can communicate to our members. Should we keep the
member directory as a “members only” benefit. There are several organizations that we belong
to where one of the reasons we belong is to be listed in the member/provider directory. Any
chance we have a privacy policy that would govern this? One idea might be to have a “service
provider directory” that we charge companies/individuals an additional fee to be listed in.

Development And Communications Committee
The Development and Communications Committee shall be responsible for fundraising, member
services, website oversight, promotions and communications. Committee will develop and
implement an annual fundraising campaign, including revenue targets and potential funding
sources, with assistance from the Board and other members, following the annual conference
each year.

The Committee works to expand and communicate the benefits available to members, surveys
the members as needed to determine areas of interest and satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and
develops a strategy for targeting membership recruitment to increase overall membership in
CRRA, as well as a strategy for member retention. The committee oversees the maintenance
of the membership list, and works with the Recyclescene editor to produce the membership
directory.

Because it's powered by Yahoo!, you get proven search results. The money GoodSearch
donates to your cause comes from its advertisers — the users and the organizations do not
spend a dime! In 2007, GoodSearch was expanded to include GoodShop, an online shopping
mall of world-class merchants dedicated to helping fund worthy causes across the country.
Each purchase made via the GoodShop mall results in a donation to the user's designated
charity or school – averaging approximately 3% of the sale, but going up to 20% or even
more.”

I created a copy of the site on my VPS for use as a development site and as emergency
back-ups. However, because the site is so large I do not want to keep the second copy
on my VPS (expensive server space). The current CRRA site is on my reseller account
(less expensive server space), not my VPS. After placing back-up files in Amazon S3 cloud
storage and removing garbage files the site has gone from 29GB to less than 17GB. The
reason David could not create a sub-domain/folder with a dev site is that he did not
previously have enough space. So I increased the CRRA site space allocation to 75GB,
and I increased bandwidth limitations by 10x. David can now copy the current site into a
sub-folder on the current server and test/install the new theme.

2. Electronic Communication – Website/Listserve

3. Print Communication – Brochures/Letterhead

5. Membership and Sponsorship

#7 - Max-R blog Information:
Request sent to DevCom by Julie Muir and is a request to add the Max-R blog to the CRRA
website and then Max-R can do promoting of CRRA on their website.

Some background: Not sure if you all know Roger Guzowski. He is a 20 year campus recycler
working in Massachusetts at Five Colleges and here in CA at Sac State and then back to Five
Colleges and now to Connecticut’s crra.org. He started a recycling blog under Max-R – a site
furnishings and recycling bin manufacturer that deals directly with recycling. Articles have been
very interesting and good. Here is the blog: (http://blog.max-r.net/).

Now that he has some postings on his blog, he is starting to think about linking to and from the
site. He would like to link to CCRC (TC) and CRRA to get us some additional outreach. Have we
developed any sort of policy or procedure for this sort of reciprocal linking?

FROM Roger:
P.S. Speaking of CRRA and the blog, I can't remember if I ever talked to you about cross-
promotional opportunities regarding the blog. We (meaning Max-R) were putting together a
links page and reaching out to folks to cross promote (our links help our readers find out about
CA CRRA in exchange for some reciprocal promotion to help CRRA members discover the blog).
Can't remember if I floated that to you or Stephen, but would love to follow up and see if we
could do something there. I'm sure there has to be someone that misses my multi-page email
rants on the CA CRRA listserv. :^)

Roger Guzowski
Campus Recycler Emeritus
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Website Updates

Tasks for future meeting:
1. Lifetime Membership for people who have been in the industry and a member of CRRA for a
number of years.
2. Yahoo Group vs. Google Group Change (Bob H)
3. Advertising on RecycleScene
4. Facebook Testimonials
5. TC New Membership Packet
6. Review a passive fundraiser like www.goodsearch.com aimed at helping non-profits. http:/
/www.goodsearch.com/about.aspx “GoodSearch is a search engine which donates 50-
percent of its revenue to the charities and schools designated by its users. It's a simple and
compelling concept. You use GoodSearch exactly as you would any other search engine.

7. Donation link and link up to 1% for the Planet as an approved recipient

I don’t recommend going public about our brand refresh yet. I have some ideas about how to
build engagement and support for it in the membership, so that in case we do change the logo,
it isn’t just sprung on people out of the blue. But I think we ought to wait until we’re further
into the process, and discuss how to position it.
Add into rebranding how we I am the opposite of David in that every time I have seen somebody
use "CRRA" like a proper name instead of a thing by saying "CRRA" instead of "the CRRA" I have
viewed it as grammatically incorrect, but acceptable due to such frequent use.

I would not say "give money to California Resource Recovery Association" w/o the "the". So
it should not change when abbreviated to CRRA. Using it that way makes CRRA sound like a
proper name. For example I would not say go get "the Bob", if talking about a person named
Bob, but I would say go get "the bob" if talking about a plumb bob, ie a thing. The CRRA is an
association and an association is a thing. However, if "CRRA" is intended to be used as proper
name then leaving out the "the" would be fine.