Executive Director's Report July 2003 =========================== July 9th, 2003 By John Selwyn (execdir@NCF.ca) Donations: Donations for latest period: For the months of May and June totaled $34,514 or approximately 10% above the forecast of $30,741. The donations include the OPERA donations of $9,500. Removing the OPERA donations from the total results in the member donations being underbudget by almost 20%. We are continuing the previously noted trends of new member donations being significantly over expectations while renewals continues to fall short. Expenses: Operating expenses for the core NCF service during the period was $28,932 or approximately 5% below the budget for the period of $30,444. Operational costs would have been lower were it not for the one time $5,000 expense associated with the transisition from Bell to Telus. Personalised Start Page: Personalized member start page: Development is progressing and the page will be live shortly. The page provides the integration of may of the NCFs' services, webmail, iDesk, rewritten help, introduction and donation pages. The web site will also provide personalised dynamic content in both French and English. This page will always be evolving as new services are integrated. Digital Lines: The switchover to the digital lines happened on the morning of June 23 without significant difficulties. As was expected the digital lines are not only faster but are significantly more stable in operation. Approximately 2/3 of the current NCF members have v90 modems allowing them to take full advantage of the faster capabilities. A handful of members have experienced difficulties with connections. We are attempting to isolate the cause of the difficulties. The success of this project is a credit to Telus and to Andre, our system administrator. We've enjoyed temporary office space, compliments of Carleton University, for the development team over the summer. Our latest arrangement, which had excellent views over Dow's Lake and Ottawa, ends this week. We are expecting to be allocated new space in September. In the mean time we will be working more from home offices. We will also take this opportunity to re-organize the office space we have on the 4th floor, and volunteers will be answering member queries from their homes. The NCF is continuing its mission of making Ottawa a better place. Efforts over the last 8 months have improved key aspects of the service, dial-up access, email and iDesk. With the launch in the fall we should be able to encourage more residents to take advantage of what the NCF has to offer. I am confident that the members, in turn, will 'do the right thing' and contribute their share to covering the operating costs of the NCF. John