Residents of Outlook will have better access to critical information in the event of emergencies or important public notices if they choose to sign up for a new alert system that the Town has created.
The goal of the program called 鈥楥onnect鈥 is to keep people informed of what鈥檚 happening in their community and provide up-to-date alerts when they need to be issued, such as a water main break, road construction, or a planned power outage.
The program comes from the Winnipeg-based All-Net Municipal Solutions and 鈥渋ncorporates 20 years of municipal experience into one central portal to manage and disseminate messages to all residents via email, smartphone apps, text messages, social media and voice lines,鈥 according to its website.聽 Connect was developed to give administrators in municipalities this portal to send and manage messages to community residents on multiple platforms, and the application also provides people with a link to the town office for the latest municipal information.
The program will also incorporate information from Canada鈥檚 emergency alert system, Alert Ready.
Connect first got the attention of the Town of Outlook last year after a proposal from All-Net to get onboard with the program sounded like a good idea for the community, as discussed at a July 2020 council meeting.聽 The numbers, broken down at the time by former town councillor Maureen Applin, equated to an approximate cost of $1.66 per resident per year.
Shanda Rolleston, an office clerk with the Town, says staff are getting ready behind the scenes for the imminent launch of Connect and noted that the public is 小蓝视频 asked to sign up with their preferred method of communication.
鈥淭his is a brand-new system for our office!鈥 said Shanda. 聽鈥淭raining will take place this week for the software and programming portion of the system. 聽We are currently asking people to sign up for there preferred method of communications for when the system is in place.鈥
Residents can read more on Connect and sign up for the program on the Town鈥檚 website at the following link: or learn more on the Town鈥檚 official Facebook page.
According to All-Net, the Connect program is used in more than 500 communities and serves more than 1.1 million people.