72nd General Convention: 1997 Communications Survey

Basic stats

Province	Surveys returned	Percentage of whole
1	36	9%
2	42	10%
3	52	12%
4	75	18%
5	62	15%
6	33	8%
7	52	12%
8	60	14%
9	6	1%

Questions and responses

Questions	Yes / Percent	No / Percent
Do you own or have access to a computer?	355 / 84%	66 / 16%
If no, do you plan to purchase?	25 / 37%	41 / 62%
Do you have email at home?	215 / 51%	206 / 49%
Do you have email at your office?	176 / 42%	246 / 58%
If no email at all, do you plan to obtain?	78 / 25%	N/A
Do use use the Internet?	246 / 58%	175 / 42%
Do you or someone in your household use ECUNET / QUEST?	80 / 19%	341 / 81%
Is email an effective tool for being more connected to the church?	158 / 38%	263 / 62%
If you're not using computer technology to its full advantage, would you -- if support, training, education, and resources were available?	271 / 64%	150 / 36%
Is computer technology an effective medium to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus in the 21st century?	376 / 89%	45 / 11%

Comments

Voluntary observations by lay deputies:

I see the gospel proclaimed in person, not cyberspace. While the folks at the Episcopal Church Center are -- for the most part -- good hearted and desirous of using the tools of modern technology in an effective way, the requisite knowledge appears to be lacking. Commitment to ECUNET is no long appropriate, especially in light of the much greater and more widespread capabilities of the Internet and World Wide Web. With youth so involved with computers, it would be beneficial to the church as a whole to be accessible on AOL, the Internet, etc. By being accessible, we could reach a greater amount of youth to join our church. It would be an effective tool to promote growth. QUEST / ECUNET is a very cumbersome, slow, and inadequate network. I cancelled my subscription but would [NOTE: sentence not completed] DFMS.ORG make no sense to people outside the Episcopal Church and sense to only some of us in the Episcopal Church! We have just purchased our computer and are exploring uses. The one time I looked up the Episcopal Church I got a very fractured, individual editorial view -- surely we can do better -- apparently we need a better address. I am old-fashioned enough to stick to a wide range of reading of church materials, newspapers, and magazines, and the Episcopal News Service. I am all in favor of the church communication electronically rather than by 'third class mail' (as someone this week put it). However I think it will be some time before most people have a computer / access to Web sites. It will probably be 2-4 years before I have a personal computer and doubtless poor Episcopalians must rely on communication from their parishes, diocese, and national church coming to them by some other means (other than PC) for quite a few years to come. My concern is that by jumping gung-ho into the Web / computer access market, the church may lapse in areas of other forms of communication -- even if it is third-class mail. I would recommend a difference address other than 'dcms' or whatever it is. Suggest EPISCH or other. I have followed the preparations for GC on the Internet following the official and unofficial web sites and commend Pam Darling and Louie Crew for their most helpful info. This is great, but the cost to small churches is the downside unless there could be help with the cost. Encourage dioceses that do not make full use of computer technology and electronic community to do so. QUEST / ECUNET is not particularly useful or effective. The church, even internationally, would be far better served using the Web and regular internet / email. Email and Internet are good for quick communications but do not replace the one-to-one contact in person that helps people know the heart of the Gospel through our proclaiming the Christ by our lives and example. Receiving E-mail on my son's computer. Plan to learn how to use more extensively. The church needs to get on the web for real. Louie Crew's site is presently the most useful one. The service we have to pay for (e.g. QUEST / ECUNET) are useless for most of us. If you want to communicate with anyone other than the "in" crowd, get on the Net in a major way. Use QUEST for Diocesan and Standing Committee business. Witnessing to the Lord our God is still dependent on personal contact in our lived with another. Let us not let technology become an instrument of our witness. (That would be a lazy way out.) 1. Need to be "unification" of the bulk of web sites, coast to coast. The fragmented nature, currently, and DFMS address make difficult and haphazard access. 2. Standardized advertising of the e-mail and web site addresses needs to be placed officially on all logos, letterhead, and mastheads for rapid proliferation. 3. The above, plus 800 telephone numbers and extensions (where appropriate) to energize communities 4. Will an electronic link / web site development packet be sent to each diocese? 5. Will there be appropriate inclusion of various indigenous languages to be accessible? In A laska we need church (nat'l help) to provide the hardware / software to connect us together. We could use 48 computers with ECUNET / Internet access and someone to travel from church to church to hook it up and teach people how to use it. Would love to see us add email addresses in registration materials and make available on the roster. I strongly support use of the new technologies; however, our personal lifestyle does not require a PC. You should create a directory of deputies by email address, to augment the one by Deputy Crew. Also, ECUSA email and web address should appear on all stationery and official documents. At my age I am not interested in any computer usage for me! I think the church should be on a better net than ECUNET so it is more accessible to people on other nets. I am concerned that information on QUEST / ECUNET is not available except by subscription. While recognizing the need to generate revenue, I would remind you that many people are already paying a connect charge. Added charges could be burdensome to some. Do you have every deputy's email address; if not, should you get them while we are all here? But we need eye contact and face to face interaction. Our parish has a wonderful home page with weekly announcements, etc. -- even music! Our diocese has just gone on-line -- we were able to use email in planning deputation meetings--and we have used it for planning regional meetings within the diocese. I thoroughly enjoyed Louie Crew's messages and networking prior to general convention. Great for planning but cannot substitute for breaking bread together. I have a church-oriented web page. I recommend that any approach you adopt be based on the most common software (Netscape and Microsoft) and not on dedicated software (QUEST). The focus of church sites should be one: a) People in parishes who need info or help in programs. b) Inquirers who want info on what the ECUSA believes. c) Inter-group communication of people with common interests. In descending order of priority. I am very new... a learner... in the computer field, but I am awed by its potential for teaching, in all the facets of that field! ECUNET / QUEST is difficult to use. (At least it was three years ago!) I would use it if it were simpler! I spend 3-4 hours on the Internet per day. All my academic work is done on email on Internet Information on the Episcopal Church and its activities and organizations is available online, but not readily accessible. Without "inside information" these sites are inaccessible and therefore useless. New communication resources should be utilized and located under common keywords (Episcopal, for one) so that we may use the excellent opportunity for evangelism.

Responses from clerical deputies
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