Tuesday, September 19, 1995
Director of Development's Report
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Development Committee
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The Development Committee resumed its monthly meetings on August 29 at RMOC
Headquarters. Meetings are held on the last Tuesday of each month.

The Committee appointed Andre Ouellette (former Volunteer of the Month) to
the position of Vice-Chair and requests the Board's recognition of that
appointment.

Challenge Campaign
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The Challenge Campaign exceeded its target. At last count, $54,600 had been
received. The Development Office is filing a report to the RMOC to claim the
Challenge Grant of $50,000, 90% of which will be awarded outright with 10%
held back pending receipt by the RMOC of NCF's audited financial statements.

The Great FreeNet On-Line Auction
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The Auction closed on August 19, raising $9,466. This year, 261 bidders
placed 1,236 bids on 188 items. Last year's auction raised $20,263 with 555
bidders placing 2,234 bids on 226 items.

Although both auctions opened with approximately the same number of items on
the block (over 100), fewer items were donated during the auction this year.
Furthermore, the total "retail value" of items was almost $10,000 less this
year.

In general, participation by Members was half what it was last year,
possibly because of the timing of the auction. Summertime users may be
younger and have less money to spend; people may have donated their money to
the Challenge Fund instead. The auction committee recommends that the next
major FreeNet On-Line Auction be held in the Fall of 1996.

Equipment Donations/Gifts-in-Kind
---------------------------------
Hardware Canada Computing is donating another SPARC station computer to be
used as a news server on NCF. Mitel is donating 3 Sun 4/280s with spare parts.

Fulcrum Technologies is proceeding with installation of its donated
"Surfboard" (text retrieval software) on NCF.

Jeff Bossert has secured the donation of an Ethernet switch from Plaintree and
two modems from ATI.

Mini-Projects
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A Hallowe'en/Loonie Bin party will be held on October 29th at Riley's Food &
Fun Emporium, co-ordinated by Andre Ouellette. The event is intended as a
modest fundraiser and a thank-you to volunteers -- all are welcome.

Membership Donations
--------------------
The Development Committee recommends that an option of "Personalized IDs"
(PIDs) be made available as part of NCF's Donor Recognition Program in
connection with contributions of volunteer work as well as financial
donations. An Executive Summary and Report are posted online.
             Our Community. Our FreeNet. Working together.
                     "go funding"  / "go helpers"
Gordon Pearson (au167), Director of Development, National Capital FreeNet