[Chapter-delegates] Application to form a Chapter in Colorado

[Sabrina Wilmot]

Dear Colleagues,

The following application for a Chapter in Colorado has been received. 
It is being sent to this list for peer comment and review.

Please note that the chapter is not yet formed and has not officially 
been recognised by ISOC.

If there are people on this list that know the individuals proposing to 
establish the chapter, feedback is especially welcome.

The period allowed for comments is 2 weeks and the deadline is 3rd 
November 2007.

Please do not hesitate to contact me on or off list.

Best regards,
Sabrina Wilmot
ISOC

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A. Proposed name of the Chapter

Internet Society, Colorado Chapter


B. Community of Interest the Chapter will to serve

Internet professionals and Internet focused businesses and organizations 
in and near Colorado, USA.


C. Purpose and Scope of chapter

Initially the chapter's primary focus will be to raise awareness in our 
community of the ISOC and its principles and goals.  We will leverage 
professional networking and personal relationships along with local and 
online media to “spread the word” and garner support.

Going forward this chapter will act as a centralized force in this 
region for promoting the principles and goals of the ISOC both within 
our local community and around the world.  This chapter will bring the 
numerous knowledgeable Internet professionals in this region together 
and unite them in efforts to promote the evolution and understanding of 
the modern Internet.  The Internet Society, Colorado Chapter will also 
act as an environment for social and professional networking in order to 
build a more cohesive culture for Internet professionals and activists 
in this region.  The chapter will organize events and projects to serve 
all of these goals.


D. Founding Members of the Chapter

Chris Grundemann
589 Branding Iron Lane
Castle Rock, CO 80104
cgrundemann at gmail.com
720.933.6987
Network Engineer, Time Warner Telecommunications
Managing Partner, Grundemann Technology Solutions
Global Member, ISOC

Gene Barlow
3205 Oakes Mill Pl
Castle Rock, CO  80109
gene.barlow at gmail.com
M:  303.912.9575
Sr. Security Engineer, BEW Global

E. List of Supporters

We plan to approach our friends and co-workers to become members.  In 
addition to many personal relationships within the industry, we are both 
members of professional networking communities such as LinkedIn and 
Integrated Alliances.  We plan to leverage these relationships and 
groups to find members and supporters throughout this region.

While we have no official supporting organizations at this time; with 
the headquarters of several major telecom players and major offices for 
other IT companies here in Colorado, along with many locally operated 
Internet and technology companies; we have high aspirations.  We believe 
that we will receive the support and/or membership of many of these 
organizations.

Cisco, Hewlett Packard and Lucent are of course already members and we 
believe that once we are established we will be able to work through the 
ISOC and gain support for our chapter from their local branches.

While the major telecoms (Qwest, Level3 and Time Warner Telecom) may not 
consider membership, we believe that we have a good chance at support 
from them with a local chapter (and possibly membership with time).

Additionally, there are a large number of smaller Internet focused 
companies here in Colorado.  Many of these companies we already have 
relationships with and feel certain they will grant us support and 
consider membership very early in this chapter’s life.  Some examples of 
these companies are WavMax, WhisperTel, Mesa and MHO which are all local 
WISPs; Comfluent, Data393, Data102 and Centurion systems are all data 
centers; additionally there is American Tech Support (desktop support), 
IP5280 (VoIP), LiveWire(CLEC) and WebRoot (software).  These are all 
local businesses which have an interest in the future of the Internet. 
They are also businesses who we have personal relationships with the 
owners, founders and/or management and employees.


F. List of Requirements

We plan on forming a Nonprofit Corporation in the
state of Colorado.
We will file with the IRS as either a civic league under section
501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code or as a private foundation under
Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) -- (TBD by vote at the drafting
of our bylaws).


G. Additional Information

When I first joined ISOC I was quite surprised to find no Colorado or 
"Rocky Mountain" chapter in place.  Colorado and Denver in particular 
seem to be one of the major hubs within the United States for technology 
and telecommunications.  I firmly believe that we will have overwhelming 
support from many local businesses and organizations as soon as we get 
word out about the chapter forming.  I further believe that because of 
the concentration of highly intelligent and very motivated people here 
in this area, we will quickly become one of the more active and 
productive chapters of the ISOC.

Gene and I have both started an run small companies in the past and we 
are both part of large professional networks here in Colorado and in the 
IT and Telecom industries across the country.  These two facts will give 
us an advantage starting this chapter and making it successful.  We have 
already started to tentatively gage interest and the response has been 
very positive.  We are both very excited to get the Internet Society, 
Colorado Chapter officially "in Formation."

Our plan upon becoming a chapter in formation is to first bring on-board 
individual members.  We will due this first by word of mouth through our 
personal and professional relationships.  We will quickly expand this 
effort to include the use of networking tools and communities including 
LinkedIn and Integrated Alliances (IA).  IA is a professional networking 
group/community in the greater Denver/Boulder metro area organized by 
Mike O’Neil.

At this point we will approach the local businesses (listed above) with 
which we (or new members) have personal relationships with.  These 
pre-existing relationships will make it easy to approach these initial 
companies (and other organizations) for membership and support.

Once we have become an official chapter we plan on creating a committee 
dedicated to recruiting new individual members and another focusing on 
organizational members and support.  By this time we will have a number 
of organizational members onboard which will help to give us credibility 
and a representation of our stability.  These comities will leverage 
many of the same methods listed above in addition to using local media 
and events to spread the word and bring folks on-board.


H. Your Contact Information

Chris Grundemann
589 Branding Iron Lane
Castle Rock, CO 80104
cgrundemann at gmail.com
720.933.6987
Network Engineer, Time Warner Telecommunications
Managing Partner, Grundemann Technology Solutions
Global Member, ISOC

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