Get on board the
Virtual Global Research Assembly

By the
Global Archives Research Assembly (GARA) Design Team

You are invited to the Virtual Global Research Assembly (VGRA) on September 20-27, 2014. This will be a mainly online event but will include a small group gathered in the GreenRise (formerly Kemper) building in Chicago.

The event is part of the Global Archives Project. The ICAs are the key of focus of this work, to start with, as well as offering other organisations the opportunity of participation.  We want you to be able to use the historical work of the first 50 years of the ICA for your own benefit, growth and effectiveness. We also want to enable you to find, download or request material scanned and add your work to the Global Archives so it can be available to other ICAs and interested parties. You will learn how to do this with “hands-on” guidance during the assembly.

VGRA will be an opportunity for people from multiple locations to collaborate on some action research. We have found that a group of people, working in pairs, can do very creative work. Coming together later for sharing and deciding on next steps allows work to continue without any central control. This will be enabled by our able Tech Team support.

You can invite others working with you to join a research team of your interest, either an existing one or a new one of your choice. Currently we have four active research teams but expect more. You can see current Research Collections and follow their work in the following web page: (www.wedgeblade.net/wordpress/).

Please consider participating. To register go to:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FpWOFYJOiRqvulHuMy9- kjrqCxAoTl0B8jxuLxrX5FY/edit

Details of how to participate and how we can help you connect your archived work to the larger data base will be sent to you.

In mid-August we will get the teams set and guide them from there through the GARA. We hope this work will continue after the assembly is over and will be self-directed. Please join us. This is for you!

Questions regarding the GARA

I have some good models I’ve created, but not shared. How do I get them into the archives or into a specific collection?

Great! We anticipate a team working on this during the assembly that you can join and help design the process for doing this. Let us know if this is an interest of yours.

How much time will I need to participate?
Whatever you can. Teams are self-directing. Whatever time you can commit is between you and your team.

How much will it cost?
There is no cost for online participation. If you come to Chicago, there is a reasonable room and food fee. If a specific Research Team has expenses, it is responsible for getting the funds. In future, there will be a fee schedule for document scanning but none during the assembly.

Will some of this be recorded, so that I can access it later?
We will do this for some of the plenaries and common interest areas. For instance, we plan to tape (YouTube) the dedication of the solar panel installation for the GreenRise building which will happen during the assembly.

(Ed. See inside back cover for more information regarding the Year of the Virtual Global Research Assembly.)

The GARA Design Team consists of:
Jack Gilles (jackcgilles@gmail.com),
Gordon Harper (gharper1@gmail.com),
Teresa Lingafelter (tlingafe@gmail.com),
David Scott (drdscott72@ gmail.com) and
James Wiegel (jfwiegel@yahoo.com).