THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN 2003.
November 8, 2003
Free Geek received Honorable Mention for the 2003 Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation, this award is sponsored by the Graduate School of Management of the Claremont Graduate University in California.
November, 2003: 97214-3551
The FREE GEEK empire pretty much has control of the entire block of SE 10th Ave between Market and Mill. We are expanding our operations into the space to the south of us with a new, larger store, new classrooms, meeting room, and - after three years of planning! an open to the public internet access space. Library card not required (but encouraged).
October, 2003
Welcome Josh and Nancy, two dedicated volunteers, to our paid workforce! Josh is interning in the Thrift Store as an assistant to Rick, so Rick can take a break to breathe once in a while. And Nancy, who has been offering her patient and understanding advice to FreekBox Adopters for months (or is it years?) will now be paid for her time. Auntie Nannie, on the other hand, is a rogue. Her tech support advice may be funny but it's not endorsed by any authority. Adhere to it at your own risk and don't believe a word she says about gnomes.
September 26, 2003
FreekBox spec upgrade! On this date, FreekBoxes were built with 3 - 3.9 GB hard drives.
September 17, 2003, 6 PM PST
Check the archives of 90.7 FM Portland on the web to hear our VIP volunteer Berkeley interviewed on the KBOO Youth program The Underground. The Underground was started by another dear (and very busy) FREE GEEK volunteer, Jacob Rosenblum.
September 12, 2003
The arduous hiring process is over. We let Shawn Furst know that we wanted her for volunteer coordinator when she came in today to work on our remodeling project. There were many amazing candidates for this position; we think everyone will be impressed with Shawn. (Staff lore holds that the coming of the Volunteer Coordinator will solve all problems. This prophesy has yet to be disproven.)
September 1, 2003
Recycling Coordinator! After much deliberation, we settled on Jhasen Cooper as the new overlord of recycling at FREE GEEK. We believe he will bring a new era of peace, prosperity and sustainability to this important realm of our operation.
August 28, 2003
(This is why they call us geeks.) A small crowd gathered in the front area of FREE GEEK this morning to witness a volunteer entering the 100000th gizmo into our database! Previous round-number gizmos have also seen celebration and have included: #15000, a 17" monitor dredged from the Willamette; #10000, a dinged-up and inkstained dot matrix printer; and #25000, what appears to be a home-made flight simulator controller.
Gizmo #100000 is a wooden-handled pogostick and was entered in the database at 11:56:09 am. Woohoo! (You may now return to your regularly-scheduled lives.)
August, 2003
Just a little tidbit: We've recently been able to upgrade the FreekBox spec from 80 MB to 96 MB of RAM.
August 22, 2003
Welcome Ron Braithwaite to our staff! He brings a lot of diverse experiences and skills as well as patience and humor to running our fledgling Collaborative Technologies program.
July 9, 2003
FREE GEEK was awarded $159,000 by the Meyer Memorial Trust, a local
community foundation. This two year grant will help us expand our operations,
increase staff and fund a new program called the Collaborative Technology
project, that will help local non-profits convert to Open Source Software. A
huge thanks to Marie Deatherage at the Memorial Trust for helping to guide us
through the process - and a really HUGE thanks to everyone (literally
thousands) who has helped to make the FREE GEEK Community Technology Center a
reality. Homer says "Woo-Hoo!".
Friday-Saturday, June 20-21, 2003
Association of Oregon Recyclers annual conference and trade show at the Valley River Inn near Eugene. FREE GEEK provided technical support as well as participating in the "share fair" at the tradeshow.
Early June, 2003
Our staff expanded by three! Vagrant and Dave Haskins were hired to share the Build Coordinator position, and Geiner Vindas was brought on as volunteer staff in the printer repair position.
Thursday-Saturday, May 29-31, 2003
FREE GEEK received a Founders of a New Northwest award at The Sustainability Forum "Lead the Change" conference at Portland Hilton. Oso gave a little speech and we got a certificate.
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
FREE GEEK's Executive Director, Oso made a presentation to the IT students and faculty at Clackamas Community College. He gave a short slide presentation and encouraged the students to consider FREE GEEK as an option for their internships.
Monday, February 3, 2003
FREE GEEK's Executive Director Oso was the keynote speaker at the Heald College annual awards ceremony at the Benson Hotel in downtown Portland. He made a short presentation about FREE GEEK and hopefully inspired the students to get involved in community service.
Thursday, January 2, 2003
FREE GEEK was granted $20,000 from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. The grant was developed in partnership with the City of Portland's Office of Sustainable Development. The funds are allocated for the Community Technology Center expansion project. The DEQ website has more info. about the project.
