Annual report - Volunteers and NCF Office
        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Volunteers are the "life blood" of the National Capital FreeNet. Much of
the work of the NCF is dependent upon volunteers, and I would like to
salute and thank each and every volunteer who helps to keep the NCF here
for us all. There was a shift in focus in 1997 from Task Forces to Teams,
as we worked to encourage team work and team building.
 
There were many changes during the year. Thomas Hall replaced Louisa
Lambrechts as the Speakers Team coordinator. Donna Shaw replaced Wayne
Allen as Volunteer Coordinator of Recruitment. Andre Ouellette took on
Recognition duties, while Mike Mason continued responsibility for
volunteer events. There were parties at St. Patrick's Day and Halloween,
the birthday party was held in February, and the annual picnic was held in
August. 

The NCF Office was very busy this year, as we validated over 6,000 new
accounts, renewed over 13,000 member accounts, and processed over $247,000
in deposits. There was also extra work to be done in unarchiving accounts
for members who failed to renew before their accounts were archived. The
office was also involved in the auctions and other fund-raising activities
for NCF. The office was staffed by 67 individual volunteers and 26 members
on coop or placement status. (Please type 'go office' to view the list of
all those involved in the office this year.)

All Information Providers are processed through the office, and then set
up on the system by Don McCallum, IP Administrator. SIG Administrator Mike
Mason coordinates expanded SIG's through the office as well. 

All Volunteers of the Month were presented with a certificate of
recognition at the Board of Directors' meeting in December, and Richard
Bethell was announced as the Volunteer of the Year for 1997. (It should
also be remembered that the board members are volunteers, too!)

The Boutique activities were coordinated by Jessica Cohen. All inventory
was moved into the NCF Office. In addition to email orders, which are
handled by Jessica, Stephen Toy continues to coordinate sales of the
Survival Guide through the Ottawa Public Library.

This year saw the expansion of the training program at the Electronic
Access Resource Centre (ERAC) at the St. Laurent Branch of the Ottawa
Public Library. Many volunteers have been involved over the year, and at
the current time the centre is reserved for and staffed by NCF on Monday,
Tuesday and Thursday evenings, Tuesday afternoons, and midday Saturdays.
Charline Cormier took responsibility for coordinating the ERAC volunteers
in March.

Translations were done by both individual volunteers and the Translation
Team. Special thanks to Robert Rattey, Jules Lafrance and Charline Cormier
for their work with translating documents into French. This work will be
ongoing, as we broaden the bilingual areas of the NCF.

Pat Drummond and Don McCallum worked on the WWW Site Evaluation Team,
vetting web sites for approval to be included for access through the web
server proxy until the lines were opened to full access. 

I was pleased to represent NCF and speak at the first Women's Internet
Conference in October. There is much work to be done as we enter a new
year to expand the membership base, and improve the content as we move to
a web-based system.

It has been a pleasure working with all the volunteers who contributed so
positively to the NCF this year. 


Sheila Alder
bw306