Executive Director's Report =========================== 21 January 1997 By Lisa K. Donnelly Contents: 1. Funding Update 2. NCF Administration 3. Member Services: FreePlace 4. Future Initiatives 1. Funding Update ================= a) Cash Received in December ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ $5,209 New Registrants (contains 8 PFAs) $15,373 Renewals (contains 16 PFAs) $4,326 Auction $101 Boutique $1,400 Connection Sponsors $187.23 US Exchange (gain) ---------- $26,596.23 Total Deposit b) Membership Activity: Renewals ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NCF is sending out an average of 7,500 renewal requests each month since November 1996. Processing is proceeding well. The volume of return mail from members has been increasing through late December and January. The office is currently processing new and renewal account requests within three to six days of receipt. A separate account is being used for renewal mail. This account has been receiving a large volume of e-mail. Questions are being answered by two office volunteers. We are currently answering all mail queries with up to a one week turn around time. Of the 18,000 messages sent to date, approximately 6,000 have bounced (undeliverable) due to several reasons: the forwarding address is bad, there is too much mail already in the mailbox or the account has not been accessed in over 250 days (these unused accounts make up 90% of the bounced mail). The letters have three common themes: many members think donations are mandatory; there is confusion about which accounts need to send ID; and there is concern about an account being shut down before a member's renewal is processed. In order to clarify donations we have added [0] to the donation amounts suggested in all renewal letters. We have also created a form-letter addressing all three topics which we send to members who ask for clarification. Data for November and December 1996 ----------------------------------- *note: This data varies from December's report because we were able to get more accurate past information this month. Sent Rec'd Donors %/Donors Rtrn/mo. Rtrn/cum. Tot/don Av/don Nov. 6,155 213 141 66% 3.5% 3.5% $3,063 $21.72 Dec. 8,560 1,065 666 63% 12.4% 8.7% $15,373 $23.08 Receipt and processing of renewals have been impacted by the holidays. Carleton University was closed and not distributing mail from 25 December through 1 January. Staff and volunteers returned on 2 January to begin tackling the backlog. This means that renewals for December are counted on three processing weeks. January's renewal data will help flesh out results. c) Special Projects: The Microsoft Auction ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Auction closed last month at $5,374. The call went out to members to collect their software and bring their winning donation bids to the office when picking items up. Perhaps it was the holiday mindset, but we had the fastest turnaround time ever for collecting the funds and distributing the auction items. We collected the majority of the Auction money in December and are in the process of collection the rest this month. d) December Connection Sponsors ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We added two renewals to our file this month along with three in-kind sponsors. Renewing connection sponsors for December are the Canadian Passport Office and the Professional Engineers Ontario - Ottawa Chapter. In-kind sponsorships went to Corel Corporation (for 8 pieces of software), Ottawa Computes and Monitor Magazine (both in exchange for monthly NCF advertisements). e) Corporate Sponsors and Key Partners ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A NCF newsletter is being drafted to send out to all partners, sponsors, media and members. This will serve as an update prior to a round of contacting all Key Partners again for 1997. In addition, we will be mailing and calling Key partners, inviting them to attend our 5 February Birthday Party at the RMOC. Recognition will be part of the event. Our proposal to the Royal Bank has been turned down. Unfortunately no concrete reasons were sighted. We are still waiting to hear back from several other corporations from whom we have solicited large sponsorships. f) Government Grants ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No new grants were researched or sent out for December. We have not heard back regarding the $5,000 grant request for Translations at NCF but will continue to pursue this. For the first quarter of 1997 we plan on applying for a Trillium grant. Several Board members may be asked for input on the report. g) Funding Administrivia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The on-line list of donors has been update through 31 December. The next Funding meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, 28 January (always on the fourth Tuesday of the month). We will spend the next four meetings focusing on the Great On-line Auction - scheduled for April and May. 2. Administration ================== a) The NCF is Turning Four ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Remember to schedule Wednesday evening, 5 February for NCF. Please join us in the rotunda of the RMOC at 5:30 to celebrate our fourth birthday. This event is open to the public and provides a great chance to meet members and learn about various Information Providers and Special Interest Groups. We will also be celebrating our expansion into World Wide Web services and thanking key partners. Most importantly it is a chance to toast NCF for its continuing role in the community. b) NCF Staff: Three is Not a Crowd ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Since November we have been operating with only three staff. Keeping up with work load during the busy winter cycle has been a bit challenging and we are still adjusting to the decrease in staffing so please bear with us for any delays in answering e-mails or processing requests. In order to keep everything moving we are turning more attention back to volunteer coordinating. The members have always been very generous in donating time over the years and we plan to ask for lots of help (more on this later). The currently NCF staff are Lisa Donnelly - Executive Director (lkd@freenet.carleton.ca), Roy Hooper - System Administrator (rhooper@freenet.carleton.ca), and Sheila Alder - Office Manager (office@freenet.carleton.ca). To review staff job descriptions and our current To Do Lists, please see items 5,6 and 7 under "go team". c) Processing Delays in the Office ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Due to the holidays and a low volume of office volunteers at the moment, we are running behind in processing new and renewed accounts. Usually members get same day service. Thanks are in order to the returning and new volunteers helping out. If necessary we may organize two evening sessions for January where volunteers could come in for a one time blitz on processing. If you are interested please look for an public invitation in ncf.announce. d) NCF and Co-operative Education ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NCF continues to use co-op students for a variety of work. We get help and they get training. Recently we attended a Co-operative Education Employer Appreciation Reception for St. Pius High School. We are in good company. Some of the 80 participants include the Museum of Civilization, NorTel, CHEO, and Ottawa Tourism & Convention. e) Volunteer Co-ordination Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ One of the big goals for the first quarter of 1997 is to revitalize volunteer coordination at NCF. Part of the 1997 Operations strategy will include an updated volunteer co-ordination plan. We now have Wayne Allen in charge of recruitment and hope to add one more person to the team. Getting new volunteers recruited and trained will be the short-term emphasis for this team. Stay tuned for more on this in February. 3. Member Services: PPP access to NCF ===================================== a) General Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Development of the NCF website continues. We recently launched the last pending service - the Internet sampler lines. In addition members can request access to off-site URLs. Roy Hooper, NCF System Administrator, completed programming of time limits for both the Internet Sampler lines and the PPP access to NCF via our standard modem pools. At this point all the primary services in FreePlan are active and being used. The next stage is to make it easy for members to get connected via PPP, and to grow the content and member services in FreePlace (more on this below under member services). To view regularly posted statistics on PPP service usage, see the ncf.admin.stats newsgroup or type "go usage and chose item 10. Detailed data will also be available in the February report. 4. Future Initiatives ======================= a) Increasing Francophone Content ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At the end of 1996, several of us agreed on the need to meet in the new year to begin planning for Francophone goals and creation of an action plan. This meeting has not happen yet but we have already been seeking more Francophone volunteers. One key step will be finding funding for the expansion of French services for FreePlace. Action plans from the upcoming meeting will be reported in next month's report. b) Creation and distribution of Diskettes for NCF Members ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Current data on the usage of our new PPP services indicates that most members are not yet using these services. Configuring a machine for PPP connectivity is not easy. It has been recommended that we may be able to develop diskette for members to install on the personal computers that would automatically configure their machine for PPP. Given our limited resources and our need to educated and train the community, this project would ideally take shape by partnering with organizations or individuals with the expertise to make this happen. This would be an outstanding members service and we would like to pursue this. We would welcome any help or leads in finding appropriate partners. c) Search Tools ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ All of the key components of FreePlan have been completed and it is time to implement the second level goals. Search engines for our website are crucial to members finding and enjoying community services and information. The Fulcrum Surfboard software can now be installed. We are also exploring other types of search tools which would make our site friendly to use and easy for all. We hope to have at least one available by the next Board meeting.