Get Out! - A New Web Site to Get You Involvedby Michael Nelson Ever find yourself wondering what's happening in town tonight? Have you wondered if there's an event coming up that you could get involved with? A new online service will be able to help you soon. Out & About, soon to be a nonprofit organization under SPEECH, is a comprehensive listing of Olympia area community events accessible over the Internet. Once it goes on-line in September, it will be open for full access at: www.olywa.net/out&about. Organizations who want to promote events can fill out an online form to submit information about the event: who's putting it on, what it is, where and when it takes place, who to contact, where to link for more information, etc. This information is added to a database of events. Anyone can then search for these events by date or by choosing a category. Events for that day and that month are highlighted whenever someone accesses the site. The service is free to all for now; once nonprofit status is attained, businesses and other private organizations will be charged a nominal fee per event for processing it. Nonprofit organizations, government agencies, churches, public schools, and other community groups will continue to use the service free of charge. But that's how it works. Why build this system in the first place? Well, look around you. How many of your neighbors do you know by name? When's the last time you saw some trash on the side of the road, or some graffiti on a building, and said to yourself, "Why doesn't someone do something about it?" When's the last time you saw a play in Olympia? How many videos did you rent last month? Community is something that we all create, and the purpose of Out & About is to get people out in the community and involved in worthwhile activities. It's a way of matching performers with audiences, governments with citizens, organizations and volunteers ... people and opportunities. Out & About is a project of Community Internet Resources (http://web.archive.org/web/20050113090248/http://www.olywa.net/cir), a volunteer group of web professionals organized to take on web-related projects which benefit our community. Out & About is also grateful to Olympia Networking Services for their sponsorship of the site, and SPEECH for the use of their mailing address and other resources. So ... what are you doing tonight? Michael Nelson is the Managing Editor of the Green Pages.
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