Sounds good. I did think of another state project you might want to consider & that is "railroads or rail lines" in the state.  It would probably take a real RR buff to put it together. I spent a lot of time one winter, with a lot of dead ends,  trying to figure out how one branch could have come from Eureka, NV, to Gem Co. within a certain time frame. It sure would be helpful to have that info all in one place. Sharon Gem, Valley, & Boise Cos. ________________________________ From: Mike St. Clair/ST <mike@saintclair.org> To: idgen@rootsweb.com Sent: Sat, December 26, 2009 8:51:13 PM Subject: [IDGEN] End of 2009 Status Report As we approach the end of 2009, it seemed to be an appropriate time for me to give you all a short status report on what has happened during my period of service as State Coordinator.  It is now approaching 5 months since I took office and I feel pretty good about what we have all accomplished in that time. I'd like to establish a tradition of the State Coordinator reporting accomplishments to the project members at the end of each year and during the month prior to any election.  Here are what I consider the highlights of accomplishments during my first five months in office: * An Assistant State Coordinator was appointed and is functioning as my partner in coordinating activities within the state.  He has been enabled to step in and perform every function of the State Coordinator should that be necessary, and has been very actively involved in tracking down and solving problems. * A redesign and freshening of the state website was undertaken.  I wouldn't say that effort is finished, but it is substantially so.. (see: http://www.idgenweb.org/) * A standard url format for accessing counties within the state was created and made to work.  No matter where a county may reside at any point in time, adding the county name to the front of '.idgenweb.org/" takes the visitors to the correct county location. * A clickable map was created as an alternative way to reach any Idaho county. (see: http://www.idgenweb.org/idgenweb_main_county_map.php) * A state server account has been established at idgenweb.org to provide high capability websites for coordinators who want them. This has been funded by the state coordinator, but has not been very expensive,  at roughly $100/year.  At present 24 of our counties reside on the idgenweb.org server. Rootsweb is the server for 13 other counties.  Three county sites reside at USGENNET and 5 are on other servers chosen by their coordinators. * Monthly off-site backups are taking place for all accounts on the idgenweb.org server.  The last such backup took place on December 21st and included about 25,000 files and roughly 2.5 gigabytes of storage. * Three new county coordinators have been appointed to handle five vacant counties.  Three existing coordinators have taken on a total of four additional counties from among those vacant.  Nine counties remain on our vacant list as of the end of the year. (they are publicly listed at: http://www.idgenweb.org/idgenweb_main_counties.php) * Four coordinators were dropped from IDGENWEB because they were neither communicating with the project nor making updates to their websites. * The draft Volunteer Guidelines have been discussed and adjusted based on input from the project members.  These are ready for a formal vote after the end of year holidays. (see http://www.idgenweb.org/idgenweb_main_volunteers.php) * A new state special project was established to focus on Indian Tribes residing within Idaho, being early in it's development at this point. (not online yet) * Significant additions and improvements took place in many counties, and in many areas of the state website, including the postcard collection, map collection, and the Oregon Trail area. * Link checks took place covering the state pages and 10 counties, and corrections were made. * All vacant counties have been reviewed by the SC and ASC and any serious problems in the page coding and links have been corrected. * The coordinator's mailing list has become an active and productive discussion venue. * A monthly roll call has been implemented and is going smoothly. * Timely reports were submitted to the Election Committee identifying our current project membership and the assignments of each. * All County projects were reviewed and found to contain currently approved state and national logos. * A vigorous effort has been undertaken to ensure that we don't have any Rootsweb county sites that are purely redirects and in violation of their policies.  Those in violation have been corrected. * Significant improvement has been made in timely responses to requests from project members, although I do know that I have fallen short of what we all desire on a few occasions. I appreciate the time, effort and support you have all provided. It has been a pleasure working with and serving you.  Suggestions for me are always welcome.  If I ever disappoint you, I do want to hear about it. Mike St. Clair State Coordinator - IDGENWEB ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IDGEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message