by Kevin Miller

I was the Chair of the Information & Communication Committee, and Committee members were Anita Miller, Jaclyn Vallis, and Carina Kirk (newsletter).

Triathlon Manitoba uses e-mail, our website, the telephone, our Spring Newsletter, media releases, our Race Line, and  paper leaflets to communicate information to our membership and others.

1. Maintain all current features (pages) on the website, and create new ones as opportunities and needs arise. Keep the website pages accurate and well organized. The website currently has 619 pages.

Our 800+ page website is a repository of accurate, relevant, and up-to-date current and historical information. Other than the Athlete Profiles, all features were completely maintained, although there were also fewer Local News stories than in the past because I expended less effort writing them. (Many Athlete Profiles were replaced by the MNTC's new website, while others where updated only when they were referred to on the High Performance page or by the Headline Photo Story.)  The Kids of Steel / Youth section was completely re-written by Jaclyn and Anita in the spring (~15 pages), and there were a few other miscellaneous new pages (including some of our policies -- I envision more policies being posted in the future).

In Spring 2000, the Board agreed that Triathlon Manitoba should work toward compiling and documenting the fairly brief history of the organization. The website contains quite a bit of statistical historical info from 1998 forward (I assumed responsibility for the website in 1999).  On many of the Awards pages, I have retroactively added information back to the mid 1990s.  This past year, I also finally made good progress with other historical aspects of Triathlon Manitoba.  I now have many notes and e-mail messages about the history of our races and clubs, but I have not yet found the 15+ hours that are required to package it onto the website. (Readers of the Headline Photo Story have seen bits and pieces of history during the past few months.) Stay tuned; this continues to be a long-term objective.

2. Update the website with information immediately after it becomes available. This results in almost daily updates.

Anita and I do all of the updates, and the website continues to be rigorously maintained.  The information flow between Jaclyn, Anita, me, and some other Directors continues to be very good.  Some other Directors could provide Anita with more and better information.

Jaclyn, Anita, and the Board are not constrained by "regular business hours".  Phone messages and e-mail messages are checked and sent, and website and Race Line updates are made, on a 24-7 basis.  

3. Use the Triathlon Manitoba E-mail Contact List (700+ addresses) to communicate important, changing, and time-sensitive information. Use the list prudently so that recipients will not begin to view it as junk mail.

The Triathlon Manitoba E-mail Contact List now has over 1000 addresses, and ~15 messages were indeed sent to those addresses on a well-thought-out schedule throughout the year. Unfortunately, a by-product of having so many addresses on our Contact List is that MTS software began viewing my Contact List messages as a mass mailing (at best) or SPAM (at worst).  This resulted in many undelivered or delayed messages, much wasted time dealing with MTS support personnel, much rework, many people receiving duplicate messages, and ultimately a change in my procedures to avoid the problems.  The net result is that the effort to send (not compose, just send) a Contact List message has risen from 5 minutes to 20 minutes. 

4. Publish and distribute a spring newsletter prior to the race season.

Carina, Jaclyn, and Anita again did a great job on the newsletter, and it was distributed prior to its deadline.  (See my 2001 report for details about producing and distributing the Newsletter.) Our Spring 2003 Newsletter was an excellent publication.

5. Publish and distribute program, event, and announcement brochures and posters. This includes assisting Race Directors with their event leaflets.

Again in 2003, this was done very well by Jaclyn and Anita.

6. Update the Race Line weekly or more often when necessary.

Done, but the Race Line receives very few calls.  It is much more valuable as the modem line in my house.

7. Produce regular (weekly) media releases during the race season, and when required outside the season.

Jaclyn and/or Brent have written 36 media releases since this time last year.  Anita posts each one on our website, and they are never removed (they become part of our history).  

8. Ensure that Information Technology is used appropriately by Triathlon Manitoba, and that any issues which arise are analyzed and resolved.

This is an ongoing, ad-hoc task.  The only major new development in 2003 was our expanded use of online registration. (I discuss that in my 2003 Technical: Timing & Results report). Future possibilities include replacing our dial-up Internet access with high-speed.

I believe that we completely met our goals in the past year.