Boulder County, Colorado, provides an excellent example of community preparation for Y2K. We present here their story, followed by the guidelines developed by Boulder County Y2K Community Preparedness Group (BCY2K), which include meeting agendas, a flyer, a speech, and forms you may copy and fill out. Thanks to Kathy Garcia and BCY2K for sharing this information with all of us.
--The editors

We kicked off our Y2K Community Preparedness campaign with a free conference at the University of Colorado, Boulder Campus, from August 20 through 23, 1998. The conference was cosponsored by the City of Boulder, the University of Colorado, and the Cassandra Project. Present at the conference were national experts on Y2K, including: Jim Lord, Roleigh Martin, Doug Carmichael, Meg Wheatley, Paloma O'Riley, Cathy Moyer, Steve Davis and Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi. The conference was attended by 700 people from across the United States.

On Monday, August 24, 1998, we met for the first time with the Multiple Agency Coordinating System (MACS), which is led by the Office of Emergency Management for Boulder County. Boulder County consists of nine cities/towns, each with its own municipal government. Each town has representatives on MACS from fire and police departments, along with representatives from Red Cross, planning department, risk management, University of Colorado, school districts. We now have three citizen members sitting on MACS who are working with the community to prepare for Y2K or any other disaster that may strike.

We have had educational Y2K meetings with the following groups:

1. Growers/farmers: asking for their assistance in encouraging individual gardening, harvest, storage, collection of seeds, and canning; and assisting farmers on how to get water to irrigate their fields.

2. Religious community: asking for their assistance as possible shelters in the neighborhoods where they are located and educating their congregations.

3. Hispanic community leaders: working to get information to local Spanish television and radio to educate the Hispanic community in the Denver Metro area.

4. Hospitals: working with Boulder Community Hospital to set up a conference to educate medical personnel on Y2K and its impact on medications for patients (some HMOs only allow a 30-day supply), and inform them on the readiness of the hospital. BCH was also asked to work with two other large hospitals in Boulder County to share what they learned about their bio-med equipment and software.5. Human Service Agencies have been asked to educate their clients about Y2K and help them hook up to neighborhood preparedness groups.