Scottish Portal Update - Phase I

Portal Tasks Completed/Under Construction

Web Design (Look and Feel) - Ginger Design has been engaged to design the look and feel of the website. Images associated with each section need to be submitted in order to facilitate the design process. The design component will follow once more of the Portal “content” is ready.

1851  and 1861 Census- Has been completed and is awaiting for the New Brunswick Archives to upload data to the Portal.  The 1861 Census - This component, the essential Portal “content”, was expanded to include all available parishes and counties for 1861. All counties are being processed, with five of the smallest counties ready to submit to the PANB to be imported into the database.

Community Place Names – In total about 250 community place names have been extracted from the PANB database and is ready to upload to the portal. 

Planned Communities - The two communities, Kincardine and Stanley, are part of this section of Phase I. This will require only a link from the PANB website, with a page designed by Ginger Design.

Biographies - More than a dozen Biographies, representing different geographic areas of the Province, have already been submitted to the Portal Advisory Committee, with more on the way.

Education Resources - To make the Portal accessible to university and public school classrooms, an Education Resource section has been added to Phase I. There is already a game developed, with a number of resources and lesson plans under construction for the Portal.

Once again thanks to all those involved with the project either through financial donations, or volunteer/work efforts. The rest of the year is looking up and we hope to have more good news next update.

What A Difference Three Months Can Make- June 2013 update

In our last update in April we issued an urgent appeal to the general public for financial assistance because the NB Scottish Portal Project was in danger of coming to an abrupt due to  the lack of support from the general public and the different levels of government.  The committee was down in the dumps due to the fact that funds

were running out.  We were hitting brick walls when talking to government and in some cases government department  were giving us the runaround.  The last 12 months have been very frustrating to say the least.

 

2013 Appeal Update

Push the time ahead by 3 months and things have changed for the better.  We have received overwhelming support from the general public in providing us the necessary funds to keep going.  In the appeal launched in April we shared with everyone our target for 2013 was $8000.00 from the general public.  Since April we have raised $4000.00 and the money continues to arrive daily.  What outstanding support from our supporters from around the province.  We have 7 months to go to raise the remaining $4000.00 and reach our goal so keep it coming.  If we are able to keep this pace up we will have raised more than half the monies need to finish the project.    

 

Government Funding Update

We are also very happy to report that we have been successful in receiving a total of $20,000.00 in grants from the province of New Brunswick.  This is much needed monies that will help us completed Phase I and moved into Phase II.   We are still working with our representatives from the federal government to secure funding.  We are cautiously optimistic that funding will be found.

 

Summer Students

On top of receiving $20,000.00 from the province of New Brunswick.  We have also received approval of one student for 8 weeks through SEED.  We have also received funding through Young Canada Summer Jobs for a student for 10 weeks of employment.  On top of this we have also hired another a third student using our own funds for the summer.  That represents over 100 man hours towards the project! 

 

Major Project update

In the next few days we will be providing an over all updated on the project miles stones and what has been completed in Phase I and what has been started in Phase II.  This will be the first major status update since 2012, so stay tuned.