Home

VRAN Staff & Board

Christopher's Blog

Christopher Parker's Blog on Vermont Rail Action Network

Web Site, Virus, Case For Support . . .

Friday, 15 January 2010 21:04 Christopher Parker

Over the Christm

as holiday I made a number of improvements to the VRAN website. Most visible is the slide show promoting VRAN and rail on the home page. It's the work of Christine, my girlfriend and is not finished yet. There's still a list of improvements I have in mind, but it looks a lot better and is much more presentable to funders and legislators and anyone else we want to send to it!

The biggest change happened behind the scenes: I switched our web host to civiHosting.com, run by Hershel Robinson. The most obvious change is that the website immediately got faster. It's really nice dealing with one person who responds instead of outsourced Indian tech support (he's got outsourced support too, for when he's asleep - but they respond in 10 minutes!) It's got a number of features that make it more reliable.

I'm working with Anna Masozera a web development professor from UVM. Her class will be using the VRAN website as a case study and will be analyzing it and contributing improvements through the spring.

Last weekend my computer got hit with a nasty virus that stole FTP passwords which enabled it to hack the VRAN website to make it spread the virus to anyone who visited. It took a couple of hours on Friday morning for me to realize what was going on and then I took it off line. Getting off my computer has been a real struggle over the weekend and Monday and I think I still haven't got it and will have to reformat. Thanks to the new host which keeps backups that I can access (which the old one didn't) replacing the VRAN site turned out to be a breeze.

Wednesday, and today I worked on revising the case for support, which should help us fundraise and focus. Mike Coates gave a presentation in Essex Junction. The house transportation committee heard from Dave Wulfson, Charles Hunter and Joe Flynn.

Thursday I traveled to Maine for the Trainriders/Northeast board meeting. Also got a little bit of updating of the database done, but there is a mountain of it waiting.

Readying December Appeal

Friday, 27 November 2009 22:03 Christopher Parker

Last Friday's concert at Union Station was a huge undertaking. I learned a lot. The good news is that we got quite a lot of good press out of it. The bad news is we sold far fewer tickets than we hoped.

WCAX, Fox44, VPR, Burlington Free Press, Rutland Herald, Times-Argus, Brattleboro Reformer ran stories. The story was picked up by AP news and found it's way onto a number of other outlets. Megan Smith from WCAX wants to do a follow up interview.

What we didn't get was sponsorship by Seven Days or a radio station (Lee tried) and I think this hurt our numbers significantly.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm hard at work getting our December appeal ready. I've written a draft of the letter, but it needs more work. The biggest piece of work is getting the mailing list up to date. I haven't had any time to really do updates since spring. I put in three days of solid work and Christine helped me by contributing another two. Christine entered about 100 changed addresses and deleted about 100 addresses from the Annual Meeting postcard mailing. She also entered addresses gathered at Friends of Rutland Rail meetings. I've been plowing through hundreds of new addresses from various e-mails. We're probably half way through the work at this point. A lot more updates left and looking up incomplete Rutland addresses and adding in information Elizabeth Curtiss looked up for Burlington addresses.

Christine says I need an intern. I think she's right. Know any candidates?

I've had a temporary donation of a printer for this mailing. I bought about $50 of envelopes and paper from Staples and will pay $25 for running the list through the National Change of Address database

I asked when we might get the board ready for a note-writing and envelope stuffing party and go no responses. What times might be good for you?

---------------------------------------------------

On Tuesday I met with Alison Crowley Demage, the railroad lobbyist. We talked about legislative priorities and the Mayor's reaction to the potential for increased trains through Montpelier. After meeting Lee I went to Rutland where I dropped off 1,000 brochures to be included in giveaways on Catamount Radio's Saturday Santa Train. They wanted me to be a volunteer Conductor, which would have been fun, but I have dear friends visiting from Nova Scotia who I want to spend time with. Was then supposed to meet Megan Fox from WCAX in Rutland, but she canceled.

Lee and I made some plans for December. I'm going to work full-time for VRAN for three weeks, focusing on getting this appeal letter out, One week of work on the web site and planning for a big stakeholders meeting in February (shippers, environmental groups, railroads, colleges, resorts, etc. Assembling a broader coalition of rail supporting organizations).

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I've been soliciting various people's advice about what our priorities should be this year. Alison suggested this will be a short legislative year where not a lot will be accomplished as folks focus on upcoming elections.

This is what I'm hearing and feeling as our priorities:

1. Keep rail from the budget cutters
2. Build Our capacity and organizational effectiveness
3. Launch a volunteer marketing and outreach effort to promote rail

=====================================================================

Hope everybody had a lovely Thanksgiving Christopher

Interns, Fundraising, Annual Meeting

Friday, 11 September 2009 22:02 Christopher Parker

Tuesday morning I drove up to Burlington to pitch UVM students in an "environmental decision making" class in being interns for us. After introductions, the class split and the students went swarming around all the other non-profit people while I was left alone. All the others had hands-on projects actually working with the outdoors in some fashion.

I don't think there was anything wrong with my presentation. But transportation isn't very sexy. I forget that because I love it. And my girlfriend thinks it's sexy . . . But in the US government the Transportation Secretary has been the neglected position used for the token member of the opposition party while all the bright lights go elsewhere.

So . . . how do we make railroads, and transportation in general, into a cause that engages at an emotional level? We might not need to look for ideas on this beyond our circle, because that we are interested in the geeky elements of transport means we are not the target audience. I'll be thinking about this.

---------------------

I also met with Dave Crawford, village manager of Essex Junction on Tuesday. He is excited to get volunteers to look after the Essex Junction train station. I said that it's important to first connect with the current station caretakers. I haven't had a chance to do that yet. This looks like the beginning of a local Essex Junction committee of rail advocates like the fledgling groups in Rutland, Bennington and Bellows Falls. This is good . . .

Plans are underway for a late October or November dance/music event at Burlington Union Station, to be filmed to promote the Western Corridor project. Charles Hunter from the New England Central Railroad is working on providing a band. It's still in discussion and we've been warned not to get too ambitious. I don't have a lot of time in October as I have consulting projects working with the Portland light-rail and the port of LA.

Wednesday I met with Giesla Keller, a fundraising consultant who has been helping me think about how to take VRAN's fundraising and capacity to the next level. She's been *very* helpful. She suggests that first we complete a "Case For Support." Writing this will probably help clarify what we are up to. I need to make some quiet, creative writing time. I'll circulate it for input including to potential funders. Then we need to put a little polish on our website. I know she's right, and I know it needs more of my time than I've given it.

She says we need to strengthen our board further, including expectations of board members which include giving of $500 a year. Is this appropriate for Vermont? We've discussed splitting the board into a larger "advisory board" with members who have either prestige or fundraising capability and a smaller executive board of members who take on a more significant volunteer load. Of course that means I have to support them, so I have to step up to the plate and be sure I'm communicating enough.

This week I worked on the on-line registration process for our annual meeting (www.railvermont.org/annual-meeting) and sent a second e-mail about it to our e-mail newsletter list (now at 391 people). Christine Texiera designed a beautiful postcard based on a David Laleme picture of Amtrak and VRS trains in Rutland and I sent it off to be mailed to 1829 names. We have about 1,000 names (mostly in Rutland) for whom we do not have addresses. I want to look them all up in the phone book, but that's not going to happen soon.

Next week and the week after I am teaching a course at Middlebury College. On the 16th I am appearing on Melinda Moulton's Burlington Community Access call-in TV show at 5:30pm. On September 23rd I'll be speaking at an environmental science class at Johnson State College.

Christopher

11 Hours, upgrading civiCRM

Friday, 04 September 2009 11:26 Christopher Parker

For all back-end functions, the Vermont rail action network uses civiCRM, an open-source constinuent management system. It's very important to our functioning, but it's a complex and cantankourus piece of software (many times bigger than the rest of this website put toghether).

Two serious bugs cropped up this summer. First I found I could not e-mail only people from Rutland or any specific geographic region. Then people trying to register for our annual meeting found that the link to PayPal didn't work. Serious problems.

I went to the civiCRM support forums and in both cases the problem seemed to be a bug in the existing version and the solution to upgrade to the next version.

Now the last time, upgrading took me 40 hours. This is, as they say, "non-trivial". I was a little bit quaking in my boots. I did take comfort that they promised improvements in the upgrade process.

Now it's done. Took 11 hours this time, and that included some hours at the begining backing the whole site up and cleaning up old files as I deleted the old civiCRM (which would not just simply uninstall, naturally).

The two front-end functions don't seem to work right. I'll figure that out tomorrow. But registering for the annual meeting seems to go right and successfully get to pay pal.

Below is the whole saga, recorded for the technically minded and anyone else using the same software with the same issues. I posted this on the civiCRM forums, but thought I'd share this here too, so you can see what I go through some days!

I began by following the documentation <http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMUPCOMING/Upgrade+Joomla+Sites+to+3.0> and uploading the downloaded zip file into the tmp directory for Joomla to install, but immediately ran into a problems.

First of all it said it could not successfully uninstall. After that message I looked at where I would expect to see civiCRM files (the component directory and the component sub directory of the administrator director) and saw none, so I assumed I was fine to proceed.

On attempting the install I got a white screen of death. Based on past experience, I presumed this was a timeout the file (at 9MB) was too big to unzip (because of my hosts limits, I assume). I do not have access to error files, but my FTP program said it had been disconnected from the server. So I began again and unzipped the package file on my own local machine and FTP’ed it into the tmp directory and tried again.

This time I got the following errors:

· JFile::read: Unable to open file: '/data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/templates/CRM/common/civicrm.settings.php.tpl'

Warning: zip_read() expects parameter 1 to be resource, integer given in /data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/libraries/joomla/filesystem/archive/zip.php on line 234

Warning: zip_close() expects parameter 1 to be resource, integer given in /data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/libraries/joomla/filesystem/archive/zip.php on line 250

Warning: fopen(/data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/templates/CRM/common/civicrm.settings.php.tpl) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/libraries/joomla/filesystem/file.php on line 239

Warning: fopen(/data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/templates/CRM/common/civicrm.settings.php.tpl) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/libraries/joomla/filesystem/file.php on line 239

CiviCRM component files have been UPGRADED succesfully.

I uninstalled and tried again for good measure, but got the same error. I went off searching the forums and found suggestions that this could be a permissions error, so I looked at the directories which were all owned by the right user and set to 755, so that didn’t seem to be an issue.

One of the threads suggested that using the alt zip file might work better, so I tried that, unzipping on my local machine and ftping into place on the server.

In the course of this I realized what could have caused the earlier problems: I hadn’t paid attention to failed transfers, and probably some files didn’t make it over.

After all 8,000 or so files were ftped up, I went to the installations screen and installed from directory. And got. A white screen of death. Oh.

Clicked refresh. And got. “installed successfully!”

Ran the database upgrade script. Another white screen. Click refresh and it says “your database has already been upgraded to civiCRM 3.0

Went to enable civiGrants, but got a could not find key error.

After ftping the two settings files back into place it seems to be good. Now to test it!

I'll Be Doing Other Things For A Few Weeks

Wednesday, 15 July 2009 01:26 Christopher Parker

Friday's event at the Rutland Train Station was great fun and a complete success! Thanks to everyone in Rutland who made it happen and especially Herb and Roberto Font-Russell.

Friday was also the day for states to submit pre-applications to the FRA for High-Speed rail stimulus funds. As expected Vermont is applying for money to upgrade both the Western Corridor (Bennington-Burlington) and the Vermonter route. Vermont has joined forces with other New England states in a joint application, which makes a lot of sense.

What's really missing in that joint application is the North-South rail link between North Station and South Station. Alas this seems to have fallen victim to Massachusetts politics. Too bad.

Nancy Remsen of the Burlington Free Press did a nice article about Vermont's application. The Rutland Herald didn't do much more than print the press release recycled by AP, but perhaps a follow-up story will come? I spent a good portion of yesterday writing and sending a press release to Vermont outlets - maybe it will get picked up.

A third event for me on Friday was meeting with advocates in the Bennington area. First, at trackside, watching the Vermont Railway's B&R Extra in North Bennington (I finally got to meet Cully in person!) and then at Whitman's Feed with Dick Pembroke, Bob Stannard and others.

Last week and this week I've been working on a paid web site gig for the town of Wendell, Massachusetts. Starting Thursday and covering the next two weeks after, I'll be working on a project for RSG consulting which will see me fly to Portland, Oregon for a week and spend a lot of time talking to truckers. When I'm done with that, it's back to the Wendell project for a week or so. Earning outside income is critical to subsidizing me to work on rail advocacy, but I see the effects when I'm away. There's always too much to do!

On my plate right now is organizing an August board retreat and a September VRAN annual meeting, tentatively for September 24, helping local advocates committees around the state and starting up an on-board volunteer train-host program -- as well as the ongoing efforts of trying to communicate enough!

I've been away

Thursday, 18 June 2009 02:08 Christopher Parker

This evening I returned from a week and a half away in North Carolina, consulting (for the sake of earning an income . . . ). Vermont has had little of my attention while I've been gone, as I haven't had time or space. I'll have a day of rest tomorrow and then will be back at it.

This week . . .

Friday, 29 May 2009 21:09 Christopher Parker

As predicted, it was a little bit of a sleepy week after dancing till dawn Sunday night (actually, I did a lot more organizing and supervising of volunteers than dancing, but I did stay up till dawn and I'm now feeling old).

I spent the day on Tuesday researching grant opportunities and got a nice little list. I've got another day's work to finish this first list of places to approach.

Wednesday night I was in Bellows Falls at the public meeting about the knowledge corridor. This is the project that would save 45 minutes (or more) for the Vermonter. Charlie Moore was there as was Charlie Hunter. Charlie Moore and Charles Hunter made their case for keeping the Vermonter on the NECR. I've been engaged with this issue all week.

I've spent some time this week sprucing up parts of the website, but I'm behind on putting up the latest information. Our most popular pages are the list of railroad operating companies in Vermont and the page about volunteering, so I put energy first in those two areas, spending a good chunk of today on the volunteer pages.

Also today I did the first part of launching a speakers bureau, which is putting up information on our webpage. So far we've got Mike Coates, Charles Hunter (of NECR), Charlie Moore, Elizabeth Curtiss, Carl Fowler and myself signed up -- though I still need to get bios from some. Do you want to add yourself to the list? Let me know Next step will be to get a list of organizations to solicit and send out a letter.

Charlie Hunter has redrafted the Vermont Rail Action Network brochure and it looks really beautiful. He reports that it will cost $500 to print 5,000. Would you like to donate to this project?

If you haven't heard, VTrans has produced two really excellent TV ads promoting Amtrak. You can watch them:
Travel on Vermont’s Amtrak Trains to See the Country http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VezplLNihqA
Vermont Green Mountain Travel on Amtrak http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzFKALpLXmQ

Next week:
Tuesday: Western Corridor Management Plan in Winooski
Wednesday: Transporting the Public conference in Montpelier (Sponsored by AARP and Snelling Center)
Rail Council
VRAN Board Meeting, 4:30 pm
Thursday: 2nd meeting of our Rutland advocates group, the "Friends of Rutland Rail"
Friday: New England Regional Rail Coalition Steering Committee
VRAN has tables at Gallery walk in Brattleboro
VRAN has table at farmers market in Rutland

The week after next I will fly to Charlotte NC for a transportation market research gig until June 16th. I have another project in Portland Oregon, tentatively scheduled for June 28, or July 6

This Weeks Activities

Friday, 22 May 2009 22:18 Christopher Parker

I sent a fundraising appeal in today's mail. It went to previous donors, excluding those who have given in the last 3 months -- about 60 total. This was a much smaller project than last December's mailing, taking a day and half's work. The package was a two page letter, reply card, #6 reply envelope and handwritten outer envelope.

I also spent a couple of hours helping with the fundraising mailing of the Vermont Bike/Ped coalition, who's board I am on.

Monday I spent all day identifying and researching potential major donors. I'd like to develop a list of potential major donors, establish a regular visiting schedule with them and a more personalized strategy to cultivate and ask each for funds. However I only got up to "C" on one list I was checking and realized this will be a much bigger project than I'd hoped and I'll have to put it on the slow track.

I've been nominated for the steering committee of the New England Regional Rail Coalition. The objective of this group is for the New England states to work together on routes crossing state lines so that we are in a better position for High-Speed rail and other federal funds. Initially skeptical, I am now impressed with the impressive array of scores environmental, business and transportation organizations that Tom Irwin of Conservation Law Foundation has recruited. I see two possible gains for VRAN: sharing grants and creating a vehicle for joint studies of our Montreal-Boston high speed line.

New England Central Railroad is making an attempt to snag $5 million of the previously appropriated $30 million designated for the Western Corridor, which runs from Albany-Bennington-Rutland-Burlington-Essex Junction. They are offering to provide a 20% match (which means 1 million - nothing to take lightly - and not an offer that will last forever). This work would upgrade the Burlington Branch (now at 10mph) all the way through St. Albans to the Canadian boarder to 59mph standards, plus take it up to 286,000 lb capacity. This is a project that definitely needs to be done. NECR is prepared to do the work this summer. If we get the stimulus funds, we can use them for the reminder of the Western corridor, but we won't know until November.

Work is happening on returning trains to Montreal, thanks to Lieutenant Governor Brian Dube. This opens up the possibility of a stop close to Burlington airport for Montreal-Burlington Airport traffic. A large share of the airport's traffic (perhaps 30%) comes from Canada.

A Brattleboro Reformer reporter found me today in advance of next Wednesday's Knowledge Corridor meeting in Bellows Falls. Expect a story tomorrow. The project would re-route the Vermonter off NECR between East Northfield and Springfield, saving 45-60 minutes. Since the number 1 complaint I hear about the Vermonter is the time it takes, I am excited about this. Also exciting is the possibility of using savings to fund a second frequency south of White River Junction. Saving an hour of running time means an hour less labor and operating expenses and, combined with the second frequency, we would see a 50% rise in passenger numbers which would translate into even higher revenue gains as the train gets more pricing power in the market. That combination could be enough to fund the second frequency without an increase in subsidy. Pretty neat! The downside is the East Northfield-Amherst-Palmer segment of NECR would no longer get the benefit of the Amtrak contract. I suspect the second frequency in Vermont would make up for that, but some are skeptical that the second frequency would actually happen.

Trains Magazine will also be doing a story on the Ethan Allen and Vermont Rail Action Network, appearing I think in the August issue (which I think arrives at the beginning of July?)

After the track geometry car went through recently, slow orders were identified and the Vermonter became slower, however tonight's northbound is only 15 minutes down.

I spent Wednesday night in Northampton at a public meeting about the Knowledge corridor and met advocates from the Pioneer Valley. Thursday I rode up to Burlington with Carl Fowler for the joint passenger and infrastructure committees of the rail council. Next Wednesday night at 7pm in Bellows Falls there will be another public meeting about the knowledge corridor (it will be about an hour of presentation, then public comments). Last week I was at the Summit on the future of Vermont in Burlington, which was a great networking opportunity. I managed some fundraising calls on the same trip.

Sunday night is the Brattleboro Dawn Dance, an all-night contra dance. I'm on the board and volunteer coordinator. I'll be a little more tired next week than usual!

A Frank Talk About Money

Tuesday, 14 April 2009 23:03 Christopher Parker

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

I am happy doing this Vermont Rail Action Network organizing and I'd like to give it my full-time attention, but at the moment we do not have the income as an organization to pay my bills. So that means I work for Vermont Rail Action Network as much as I can and hustle for other income on the side.

You can help with that - besides giving to Vermont Rail Action Network, you can hire me. I can build your web site, speak at your event, or organize your project.

Quite honestly, finances a stress for me. I'm *very* close to the margin. I'm feeling it now, since I owe $802 more for federal taxes and I just plain don't have the money. And I'm not quite sure when I will. (Its self-employment taxes for my teaching work last fall).

What I know about individual fundraising is that it's like stepping into the shower: you've got to let the water run a little before it gets hot. That's fair: donors want to get to know you before deepening their giving commitment. We're a new organization so the water is still running.

So new in fact that we haven't yet received our IRS determination letter. We can accept contributions and they will be tax deductible, but virtually all foundations want a copy of the IRS determination letter before giving.

So I'm turning my attention to building the relationships the Vermont Rail Action Network has with its supporters. This blog is a little piece of that, something I can do to share more of what I'm doing. Doing better at sharing and being transparent will help supporters get involved, right?

In the mean-time I've got a transportation consulting gig (leading market research teams) in Virginia for later in April and last week and this week I'm substitute teaching. I'm looking for a summer job. Wanna hire me?

Goals & Mission

Thursday, 20 March 2008 15:12 Christopher Parker

alt

The Vermont Rail Action Network exists to convert generalized public support for rail in Vermont into an active, organized and unified constituency that helps lead Vermont into a new age of the train. We . . .

Educate:
We inform our members, elected official and the public concerning railroad issues in Vermont

Coordinate:
Our voice is more powerful when it is well-timed and unified.

Promote:
We are ambassadors for the cause of railroads and railroad service

The Vermont Rail Action Network is a team and a citizen's movement, which means your participation is critical. If you believe that Vermont would be better with more trains (and less road vehicle pollution) then we need your voice, your hands and your gumption.

See: 2009 VRAN Accomplishments

Mission Statement:

To improve the environment and to ensure the economic viability of Vermont business by providing cost effective transportation choices, VRAN supports and advocates for the modernization and revitalization of the Vermont rail network for passengers and freight.

Please take a moment to sign up (to the left) for our e-mail newsletter and alerts. (We promise to use descretion: our newsletter will be once a month and action alerts only as necessary). And do consider volunteering (more information here).

Goals for this year:

1. Keep state rail investment from buget cuts
2. Build Our capacity and organizational effectiveness
3. Launch a volunteer marketing and outreach effort to promote rail

Longer Term priorities:

1. Upgrade the rail network for 286,000 lb capacity freight cars

2. Revitalized Western Corridor
(Albany – Bennington - Rutland-Burlington - Essex Jct - St.Albans)
including Middlebury Spur to remove 70,000 trucks from Rt 7.

3. Improved passenger train network, including

o        Passenger service to Burlington from New York and Rutland and

o        Intercity connection to Montreal and

o        Burlington / Essex Junction Commuter train network

4. Increased passenger and freight Intermodal connections

5. Rutland Rail Yard.

Vermont Rail Action Network