Report on Activities in the Month of May 2005

Financial results:
I am happy to report that donations in May of $23,466.21 
were not only better than previous years ($17,057) but 
were also above forecast.  

The 33% improvement on last years donations reflects the 
hard work by volunteers and development staff to better communicate 
a fair share approach to donations.

The month of June looks to be on track to meeting our forecast.  June 
donations look on track to achieving the target of $14,776.

The expenses for the month of May were under budget with $22,000 vs a 
budget of $23,191.  On a whole this has left the NCF with a positive 
cashflow for the month.  

Cash reserves continues to sit at the low $30K although give the trend 
towards higher member participation, I am more confident of maintaining 
a reasonable reserve through the summer season.

A proposal was submitted to the City of Ottawa associated with their 
community building.  I met with SEDTAP, a second funding body that provides
seed funding for projects connecting technology to communities.  They were
very encouraging although new proposals are not being accepted until 
September.

NCF members have suffered through a number of network problems due to 
Carletons network upgrades.  Carleton is working with HP
to solve these problems as quickly as possible.  We are attempting
to keep the membership as informed as possible.

The membership level is drifting lower with NCF now showing 8300 members.
This is not a surprise given the warm weather and the low level of 
NCF publicity.  Once we clairify our trade name I expect to be able to 
quickly print posters and have them hung in local libraries.

All of the technical systems are working well, although we have been 
without the city's overflow capacity for the last few weeks.  I am 
confidant that we are close to restoring this valuable service.  Some NCF 
members are experiencing slow response times.  We hope be able to address
this problem shortly.  Spam assassin is being upgraded.  Typically as the 
spam assassin version becomes dated the amount of yellow mail increases. I 
expect that the new version will once again increase the effectiveness
of the spam filtration.

The telephone system for the NCF office has now been upgraded to provide
french and english help for common questions.  The new help desk number
is 520 5777.  Members calling the old help number will be informed of
the new help number.   

The survey of members associated with becoming an internet coop again 
elicited many thoughful responses from the membership.  A number of 
issues were raised that will need to be resolved prior to moving forward
with becoming a coop. 

Looking forward to seeing you at the meeting.  

Cheers

John