Board report for the months of April, May and June 2008.

I hope that each of you has enjoyed the summer so far.  The NCF office 
continues to function well with Anna, Daniel and myself in most days.  

This was a challenging quarter for NCF with a major equipment failure 
in early May causing the loss of email stored on the NCF servers.  
Although the service was restored within a day, Mail was lost and has 
not yet been restored.  The RAID array has been rebuilt and a second 
RAID array has been purchased to allow for us to build a reliable 
backup system for the mail.  

Financially the NCF continues to run very close to target.  A forecast 
shortfall in donations has materialized but the strength in DSL 
membership has nicely balanced the shortfall.  Overall revenues are 
slightly ahead of forecast at $45,921 as compared to a budgeted 
$43,440.  Total income from DSL service for the three month period was 
$164,166 up from $98,609 last year.  Margin from the DSL services was 
approximately $27K which was well above what we had forecast.   
Expenses were over budget by about $12K for the period as a result of 
systems development and a telecom line charge. 

The expenses for dialup lines have been reduced for the summer in 
keeping with the system load.  With the migration of additional members 
to our high speed service I have again reduced the number of Primary 
Rate Interface (PRI) lines supporting our dial-up service.   This will 
result in a monthly saving of over $1000 with no loss of service to the 
dial-up members.  We will closely monitor the load and should dial-up 
demand begin to grow we will again increase the number of PRI.

Overall our balance sheet continues to strengthen and we now have the 
cash flow to start investing in increased marketing.

The NCF has recently completed a member feedback program in the form of 
a bi-lingual survey that will be presented to all renewing members.  
Their feedback will be useful in helping to understand where to focus 
our energies as we seek to improve the NCF.  The survey is also going 
to be useful in providing a statistical basis for seeking funding from 
various governmental organizations.
 
The marketing committee has been brought up to speed and is now 
starting to produce good ideas and insights in how to address our most 
critical issue.  Anecdotal evidence at the Bluesfest indicates that 
most of Ottawa still has not heard about the NCF or its great services.

Our general insurance and E&O insurance has been renewed.  Happily the 
premiums have been reduced slightly this year.  

In all the NCF has weathered the spring months pretty well and you 
should be pleased that I see (knock on wood) no major storm clouds on 
the horizon.  NCF is well positioned to handle any response to our 
planned marketing efforts.

See you Tuesday night

john