You are now part of a national electronic community of community action folks sharing information with one another to make us all faster, stronger, better.

The Electronic Networking Group (ENG) was established by the Monitoring and Assessment Taskforce in 1998 and started an email discussion group (listserv) in March of 1999. The ENG discussion group quickly evolved into the general purpose ROMA and community action issues listserv it is today. As of August 1999, the list has 160 subscribers.

ENG DISCUSSION GROUP BASICS:

TO SEND A MESSAGE: Simply send your question or comment to eng@state.mn.us.

KEEP IT SHORT: Brevity is always a virtue.

USE GOOD TITLES: Please start the title of all ENG traffic with "ENG:" so recipients know what has arrived in their mail box. The rest of the title should describe the content as precisely as possible. It is an act of respect for your fellow subscribers to take the time to create a concise, descriptive "ENG" title.

REPLY CAREFULLY: Remember, a "reply" on a listserv goes to all subscribers, not just the sender. If you really want to reply to the sender only and not the entire group, simply create a new email, cut and paste the sender's address, and off you go.

WHO ARE YOU? Help your partners feel comfortable conversing in this discussion group. Please include some information about yourself by signing your email with at least your name and organization.

BUILDING THE COMMUNITY: Please forward ENG mail to other people you know in community action who might be interested. The value of the discussions increases for everyone as participation increases.

ROMA Webpage: In addition to your free subscription to the ENG, on a trial basis, you will be subscribed to a list that regularly sends you email containing information about the ROMA Webpage.

WEEKLY DIGEST OPTION: Some people find it's more convenient to receive a single email each Friday that contains all of the ENG messages for the week. If you prefer this option, send an email to:
Majordomo@mail.state.mn.us with the following command in the body of your email message:
subscribe eng-digest

(Note: you must get the hyphen right in "eng-digest" or your subscription will fail.)

You are very welcome here. Sit back and observe for a few weeks to get a feel for how email discussion groups operate. Get some questions ready. Jump in.

If you are interested in more information about email etiquette, here are a couple quick refreshers:

http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html

http://www.hbg.psu.edu/iit/etiq.htm

A more detailed discussion: http://songweaver.com/netiquette.html

You can also search http://www.google.com on the term "netiquette" and learn more than you'll ever need.

COMING AND GOING: If you ever want to remove yourself from this listserv, you can send mail to:
Majordomo@mail.state.mn.us with the following command in the body of your email message:
unsubscribe eng

 To resubscribe, send mail to same address and say:
subscribe eng