Executive Director's Report =========================== 12 August 1997 By Christopher L. Cope (execdir@freenet.carleton.ca) Contents: 1. Funding and Public Relations Update 2. NCF Administration 3. Member Services and Future Initiatives 1. Funding Update ================= a) Cash Received in July ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ $4,097.00 New Registrants: 223 individual donations (including 10 for $155, separate from registration) plus 4 PFAs 5,502.00 Renewals (294 donations plus 5 PFA renewals) 700.00 Connection Sponsors (Regional Cancer Centre) 25.00 Boutique 100.00 Organizational Account (Council On Aging) 55.58 U.S. Exchange (gain) -------------------------------------- $10,479.58 Total Deposit b) Membership Activity: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Account renewal notices continued to be sent out throughout the month of July. The process is winding down now, with only 605 and 651, 1st and 2nd stage notices sent respectively. 6,381 3rd stage notices were sent (compared to a similar 6,369 last month) while 9,045 4th and final notices were sent (down from 20,311 last month). Essentially, membership trends are in accordance with budget in total, although slightly different in composition. The budget assumes $6,000 from new registrants and $3,000 from renewing members, for a total of $9,000. A nearly reverse situation exists in July with, $3,862 coming from new members and $5,157 attributable to renewals, for a total of $9,019. It is interesting to note (see table below) that now that the large waves of renewal notices are behind us, we are renewing nearly all members. In June, 793 first notices were sent and 654 accounts renewed (83%). In July, this trend improved with 651 1st notices sent and 605 accounts renewed (93%). Renewal Data for 9 months: November 1996 to July 1997 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- % of % of. Cum.% Rec'd Sent Donors/ Sent Rec'd Donors Donors Donors Tot Sent Tot/Don Budget Avg Don Nov. 6,155 213 141 66% 3.5% 3.5% $ 3,063 $5,000 $21.72 Dec. 8,560 1,065 666 63% 12.4% 8.7% $15,373 $7,000 $23.08 Jan. 8,219 1,277 1,136 89% 15.5% 11.1% $24,278 $31,000 $21.37 Feb. 7,846 2,331 1,495 64% 29.7% 15.9% $33,163 $31,000 $22.18 Mar. 8,889 2,190 1,659 76% 24.7% 20.5% $31,229 $31,000 $18.82 Apr. 7,817 2,217 1,437 65% 28.4% 20.5% $31,738 $31,000 $22.01 May. 3,079 1,831 1,266 69% 41.1% 21.9% $25,888 $31,000 $20.45 Jun. 793 654 418 64% 52.7% 16.0% $ 8,457 $16,250 $19.97 Jul. 651 605 299 49% 45.6% 16.4% $ 5,157 $ 3,000* $17.25 ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~ 52,009 12,383 8,517 69% * The total Registration budget for July is $9,000. The amount anticipated for "new" registrants is $6,000 while the budget for renewals is $3,000. c) Number of FreeNet Members (as at July 30, 1997) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Statistics obtained from the July 30 "create accounts" procedure show that there are currently 35,505 Uids active (leaving 30,030 free Uids from the maximum available of 65,535). Since inception, 63,785 members have been validated. The following calculation illustrates the number of archived accounts as at July 30, 1997: Total number of validated ever: 63766 + 19 = 63,785 Total number of accounts in use: 35,505 ------ Total archived (63,785 - 35,505) = 28,280 Yannick has completed a script to perform unarchivals and during the month of July, unarchived accounts for 103 members (more details later in this report). d) Organizational Accounts ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Council On Aging opened a new organizational account in July. e) July Connection Sponsors ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We received one connection sponsorship in July: The Regional Cancer Centre renewed their connection sponsorship for one year. f) Government Grants ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Trillium Foundation requested additional information and clarification of certain information contained in our $23,500 grant request for On-line Job Search Training. We continue to be optimistic that our request will be looked on favorably and see this request for additional information as a sign of serious consideration. g) Public Relations Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The July issue of the NCF Newsletter "FreeNews" is now online (go freeNews) and is also available on the Web at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/public-relations/ for the Web version. Ads were run in both Monitor and Ottawa Computes. This month's ads publicized NCF organizational accounts and pitched the idea of NCF-hosted Web pages, for any organization wishing to make its "home" on the NCF. Approximately 152 NCF menus are owned by archived account holders. Of these "orphaned menus", 23 individual providers have been identified and are being contacted in an effort to entice them to renew their account or appoint an alternate contact and to maintain and/or update their menu or webpage content. g) Funding Administrivia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The online list of donor files was updated to reflect all July donations. Thank You letters were sent to all donors. The Regional Cancer Centre has paid for their connection sponsorship ($700). Goldberg, Shinder, Gardner & Kronick have agreed to renew their sponsorship. We are awaiting their cheque. 2. NCF Administration ======================= a) Top Five Priorities ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The following list (to be a recurring item in this report) are the five projects which are highest in priority as of the date of this report and accordingly are occupying the largest staff time allocation. While the points are numbered here for reference, they are presented in no particular order. (1) Membership Drive A plan is being developed to encourage members to enroll their friends and associates. (2) FreeNet NextGeneration Project Planning is underway, to determine the best hardware/software configuration plan for the future of the NCF system (see details below). (3) Search Engine We are at the test stage with two search engines (see details below). (4) Strategic Plan Currently working on a strategy which will serve as a basis for the 1998 budgeting process. (5) Additional Telephone Lines A scheme for evening use of a Key Partner's telephone lines is expected to be a reality by September/October. b) Network Upgrades ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. The IRC server was upgraded to ircd version u2.9.32. This upgrade was done to address a security issue with the previous server and to provide greater functionality. Members had to adapt a little to the functionality of the new server, and in some cases, may have had to update their scripts to work correctly, but now everybody seems happy with it. 2. The e-mail server (Sendmail) was further upgraded to enlarge our filtering capability. This addition will allow us block known UBE/UCE relays both by name and by address. This change, together with previous upgrades and the good work of our Postmaster and our Net Abuse Response Team have made our mail considerably less 'clobbered with SPAM'. c) FreeNet NextGeneration Project ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Planning is underway, to determine the best hardware/software configuration plan for the future of the NCF system as we move forward into a more web-based system. We wish to introduce the general idea about this project to the Board for discussion at this stage and plan to develop the plan and its corresponding implementation details, stages and milestones at the September meeting. 3. Member Services =================== a) Spam Blocking ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Members are now reporting considerably less Unsolicited Bulk E-Mail (UBE) in their mailboxes. This does not mean zero UBE however, and the Postmaster and Net Abuse Response Team will continue to determine and block new offending domains and sites as they are determined. We are encouraged also, by correspondence with several sites who were previously identified as 'spam sites', but who have now made changes to their system and/or taken action against their offending users to eliminate spam b) Archiving/Unarchiving continues ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As can be seen in the table above, we have archived approximately 28,280 accounts since the process began. We have found that the archiving step itself, serves as a prompt for some members to renew their account and in July, we received 98 requests for unarchival. 16 similar requests were received in June for a total of 114. The Unarchival Script is complete, but for efficiency, accounts are unarchived in batches. Typically accounts will be unarchived within one week of the request and not more than 2 weeks, when a delay to accumulate a batch is required. c) Search Engine ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We are at the preofficial test stage with two search engines. A rule set is being developed and implemented to allow indexing of NCF content directly from the files, excluding certain files such as member work directories, *.old and *.bak files etc. The first, 'WebGlimpse', is a full text search engine, which allows searches on partial words and incomplete strings etc., The NCF WebGlimpse search engine is found at http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/wgindex.html Ht/DIG, develops an index of key words and while partial matches can not be done, searches on homonyms and synonyms is possible. Because the ht/DIG index uses pointers to the keyword list, rather than scanning the full text of documents, the searches are considerably faster. We hope to have an announceable result is expected before the end of August. NCF ht/DIG', is available at http://gw.ncf.carleton.ca/htdig/search.html d) Progress with Auto-install Diskettes for PPP Connectivity ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Netscape has provided us the Administrator Kit for both Netscape Navigator and Netscape Communicator to run on both platforms: Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Chris Hawley and Colin McFadyen will complete the PC version, of the auto-install diskettes, staring with Netscape Navigator. Andre Vellino has completed an auto-install version for the Mac. Help Desk Chair, Richard Bethell, is helping to test the application. Additional Mac testers are being sought. e) Guest access ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A team will be assembled, to examine what someone sees when they log on to NCF as a 'guest'. It is felt that we should offer a more friendly front door to prospective members with a sort of 'Welcome Wagon' approach to identifying our services etc.. Our system allows us to have a different main menu and hierarchy visible to 'guests' compared to what appears to members. What a guest should see is a user friendly environment which says "Hey there, this is what we offer." -- *** Christopher L. Cope, Executive Director *** National Capital Freenet / Libertel de la Capitale nationale voice (613) 820-8885 -or- fax (613) 820-3982