The people of southwest Iowa are predominantly white and well-educated and earn moderate incomes. The MIRA team members reflected these demographics. All of the teams were comprised of people representing a broad range of ages and occupations. All but two teams included one or more persons under the age of 17.

MIRA presented the Iowa Cluster communities with a unique opportunity to recruit new people as community leaders. Nearly every team commented that MIRA had brought "new people" into the community volunteer pool because of the program's technology premise.

The Corning team had perhaps the most varied composition, and the highest number of actively involved students. The three students have taken on leadership roles in their team's efforts to integrate school, community and technology through education and training. Other members of the team included people from government, local business, tourism, the media, educators, city council members, and the local Radio Shack franchise owners. When interviewed, they seemed to be a cohesive group that had formed because MIRA had presented a partial solution to a challenge they had all been concerned with as individuals. When interviewed, the group displayed a positive attitude, brushing aside the common complaints about the workshop experience, and focusing on their very ambitious project.

The Corning project will offer a number of computer courses utilizing school facilities. To sustain the courses in the future, a nominal fee of$30 per person will be charged. The second avenue of the project will target youth in the community and include a mentoring component in three categories: 5th/6thgraders mentoring 1st/2nd graders junior high students mentoring 50+ seniors, and high schoolers working one-on-one with local business people.

Overview of Team Proposals and Processes

To summarize the other Iowa Cluster proposals, most will create community web pages and/or provide access to various community training opportunities either through the local schools or libraries. Carlisle plans to also launch a community technology awareness campaign through the use of the city logo integrated with artwork of a computer and real mouse. In addition to community awareness and training, Greenfield would like to investigate the feasibility of a web-based business selling products and services made by local people with the proceeds going to local community arts projects.

Regarding the structure and process of community teams, all the teams were formed as a result of the MFRA opportunity. The groups generally met on an informal basis, as needed. Some teams had clearly delegated most of the organizational responsibilities to one person. In those cases, the leaders tended to be "professional practitioners," such as heads of local economic development organizations. This was the case in Clarinda, Corning, Mt. Ayr, and especially in Indianola.

Project ideas for all the teams developed throughout the MIRA process. Most of the communities had access to the Internet beforehand, but they wanted to learn how to take full advantage of emerging technologies to increase economic and cultural vitality. One team -Clarinda - drove to the workshops together in a large van and used the long drive time to brainstorm ideas and to become a more cohesive working unit. It is interesting that this team, like that of Corning, was less critical of the workshop experience.

The MIRA workshops held within the cluster - the quality of presenters, the material, the facilities, in fact, every aspect of the workshops - were criticized extensively during evaluation meetings with project team members. Maintaining attendance levels became a critical problem for each of the teams. The general consensus was that "after the first couple workshops, you just couldn't get people to go."

Negative opinions about workshops were most common concerning the following themes:

Iowa team members, on the whole, consider themselves sophisticated and professional. Most have attended many leadership, community the trainers were often condescending, and the material was redundant and/or low quality.

The physical facilities were not conducive to promoting interaction among 100 or more people. Teams did not interact with one another, yet little time was available for a team to interact within itself, which would have beenuseful.

Although the written evaluations were complimentary, they were not always truthful. People were afraid to "offend Kellogg." The presenters did not connect with the audience. As for the technology demonstrations, people wanted more practical examples of how other rural communities are utilizing technology in successful, creative ways.

The workshops were too numerous, too long and covered too much for participants. One team member said that people were simply exhausted. "Many folks get up at 5:00 OR 6:00 in the morning. Going to a workshop from 3:00 in the afternoon until 8:00 at night is just asking too much."

One interesting comment was repeated by several members of different teams: "We already know how to work together; we've been working together in these little towns for years!" However, members of Indianola, the town of 15,000. had a different viewpoint. They felt they needed more time at workshops to learn about group dynamics because they were strangers to one another and were just beginning to come together as a group.

Although people were critical of the workshops as a whole, several individual sessions were mentioned as being very helpful. Those were the workshops providing information on the Iowa Communications Network, fiber optics and the demonstrations provided by Appalshop, Inc. The sessions on participatory decision-making and policy education were also appreciated by members interviewed.

Although there was considerable negativism toward the workshop component of the MIRA program, community teams succeeded in forming many new alliances to create productive collaborations within their own communities. Because of their horizontal composition, teams were able to integrate the interests of local businesses, municipal and county governments, community services, and especially education. Leaders from these different sectors were not unfamiliar with one another, but they were presented with a new opportunity to cooperate for mutual benefit. The team projects that have been launched represent only the beginnings of a new network of private and public interests working together to achieve common goals.