At the conclusion of the recent California State Association of Letter Carriers Convention in May, I was appointed to the position of Webmaster for the CSALC. It is such a great honor, being appointed as Webmaster of the First NALC State Association Webpage anywhere in the USA, that I will never take my duties and responsibilities lightly! My duties include: design, HTML coding, layout, and general maintenance of the State Webpage on the Internet. Any potentially controversial material will be approved by the CSALC before being posted.
Upon returning home from the Convention, I immediately set out to design the page. In early June, the first version was already up and running at its permanent location. CSALC President, Alex Mallonee, contacted the "internet provider" and we hit the road in a "full gallop"! Since then, I have completely redesigned the "masthead", and have added many new links to Union and Political sites on the Web. You can even access the individual Webpages of all the members of the Congress from the state of California, directly from the CSALC page. Some of these are not very extensive, but Senator Boxer's is one of the best I have seen so far!
Some of the information available at the CSALC site includes:
On the National front, we were told at the State Convention that the National NALC was working on their own Webpage, and by the time you read this article they announced that it would be Online! If I obtain the URL (location) before this issue of the VOICE goes to print, I will add it to my signature box included with this article. You can link to the APWU National Webpage from the CSALC site right now!
I encourage every branch in California to get Online! If your branch cannot afford the computer equipment or the $20 per month fees to an Internet Provider, then there should be at least one member in your branch that has access to the Internet! Ask around, you will probably find several members who have AOL (America Online), Prodigy or other Internet access. Get those members involved, so that they can share the "instantaneous" information available on the Internet with the rest of the Branch! Every station and City in Branch 214 should have at least one such "contact person".
Branch 214 is still experiencing problems with its current Internet Provider, and they will be changing services soon. I hope to be working with Tony Gallardo on a Branch Webpage in the near future. Any members wishing to volunteer their "talents" on this project should contact me.
I hope to be upgrading to WIN95, on my main computer, after returning from the NALC Convention in Orlando. At that time, I also hope to upgrade several pieces of software that will enable me to better maintain and develop Webpages. MS Office for WIN95 has a free "Internet Assistant" program that allows you to write HTML code (Webpage language) without ever having to see the code. It automatically "codes" your work from within MS Word, Excel, Access, Powerpoint! That, combined with a program from Microsoft called "FrontPage" (cost approx. $100) will enable virtually anyone to design and maintain a Webpage!
If you want more information about anything in this article, or have any suggestions for future articles, or computer usage in the NALC, you can reach me at:
E-Mail me at: NALC214@SpenceBurton.com
© July, 1996 All Rights Reserved -- permission to copy non-personal information (excluding "coded" calendars and graphics, except for link purposes) is given, as long as appropriate recognition and written notice is given to the author. No personal information from GEDCOM files etc. may be copied in ANY WAY , without my express written consent! This page was originally produced using MS Word Internet Assistant and enhanced significantly with Netscape Gold Ver. 3.0. It is best viewed with Netscape Version 2.0 or better, with a screen resolution of 800x600 pixels!