Executive Director's Report =========================== 13 May 1997 By Lisa K. Donnelly (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 March ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ $4,281.00 New Registrants/Individual donations (227 donations w/ 5 PFAs and 30 separate from registration) $31,737.76 Renewals (1437 donations w/ 27 PFAs) $130.00 Boutique $700.00 Connection Sponsors (City of Nepean) $50.00 Auction $309.88 US Exchange (gain) -------------------------------------- $37,208.64 Total Deposit b) Membership Activity: Renewals ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As of 26 March 1997, NCF started putting older unrenewed accounts into a ten minute 'hibernation' mode. To date, we have not seen a strong increase in members renewing once they hit the hibernation mode. Many of the accounts were already dormant and preliminary data shows that most people who are going to renew do so before the actual renewal date or within 15 days of the account being overdue. After hibernation mode, unrenewed accounts will be archived. This means members who still want their account can get the member ID back. This could happen if a member had been away for over seven months. In the meantime, we can reuse the unix ID and resources that the dormant or unwanted account had been utilizing. The NCF Office Manager, Sheila Alder, was away for a week on vacation. Thanks to her efficient systems and support from volunteers, NCF did not see a dip in donations or renewal processing for April. Special thanks are in order for volunteers John Whyte, Robert Blane and Denise Skrypkar for helping run the office during Sheila's absence! Data for November, December 1996, January, February, March, April 1997 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Sent Rec'd Donors %/Donor Rtrn/mo. Rtrn/cum. Tot/don Budget Av/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 c) April Connection Sponsors ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We received one connection sponsorship in April. This was a renewal from the City of Nepean. Invoices were sent to six Connection Sponsors in March but return is low. d) Government Grants ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Trillium grant is still pending completion. This $25,000 request for outreach and training should be sent out by 25 May. Thanks are in order to Denise Skrypkar and Jeff Bossert! e) Visits to Key Partners ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Executive Director and Treasurer have prepared a letter to Key Partners and a 1997 NCF Wish List - including hardware, software and services we could use. The letter, list and a laminated NCF Plaque will be given to all Key Partners in June. The timing will be just right for the new Executive Director to come along on the house calls and meet our supporters. f) Public Relations Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - The NCF Newsletter "FreeNews" was sent out for May and the June edition is being worked on. You can find the May issue at (go public-relations) or http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/public-relations/ for the Web version. - The Executive Director completed an interview on NCF with the French magazine Planet Internet. This should be appearing on news stands in June. g) Funding Administrivia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -The on-line list of donors has been update through 30 April and the thank you letters have been sent out. -The Funding & Development menus have been amalgamated under "go funding." 2. NCF Administration ======================= a) System Difficulties in Late April ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Many members have experienced system performance problems in April and into early May. Difficulties started when the news server went down on the week-end of April 19, followed by more problems with the news server the following week. There was also random problems with the security server and DNS server. The primary reason for the difficulties is that our servers are highly congested and many of our applications are closely inter-related. Our Systems Administrator, Yannick Gravel, and NCF volunteer John Stewart, have been able to stablize performance for now. We have purchase two fast cards, 64 Mb of memory for freenet4 and will soon be purchasing a pentium for upgrading our filter machine. Downtime on Wednesday, 14 May will help with minor upgrades and performance checks. Additional Wednesday downtimes will be scheduled throughout the summer for continued upgrades and improvements. Yannick has posted an upgrade plan in ncf.sub.hardware-software. Comments are being collected from our knowledgeable technical volunteers and key partners. In two weeks we will redraft the plan per suggestions and create a time line and budget. We would like to extend *another* warm thank you to John Stewart for helping out even more than usual during this period. b) Shell Access Clean-up ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A long overdue clean up all all NCF accounts with uxix shell access is almost complete. Many member still have this for casual SIG or IP maintenance as that is what we gave IPs back in 1993 and 1994. We are removing the access for those who do not need it and migrating many of the others over to our MMS software. c) NCF Statistics Page Updated ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Volunteer System Administrator, Ian! Allen donated some time to update several of our usage graphs. See http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ip/freenet/ops/team/tech-dir/stats/ for links to updated graphs to May 1, 1997: Daily Member Session Counts Daily Guest Session Counts Weekly Unique Users Daily Unique Users Online Registrations and Account Activations Average Pledge and Donation per User Total Donation Dollars per Week 3. Member Services =================== a) Organizational Accounts Now Available ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We are now offering organizational accounts for donations of $100 or more. For details please see "go orgacct" - we already have eight of these created! b) Archiving Process for Unrenewed Accounts ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The final stage of the renewal process - archiving - will be completed on 23 May 1997. This will start freeing up resources and unwanted unix IDs. c) Progress with Auto-install Diskettes for PPP Connectivity ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We are now looking at using the Microsoft Internet Explorer Administrator's Kit (IEAK) for modification and free distribution. We are also in contact with our other Key Partner, Netscape, to see if we can also partner with them. Once the software has been obtained Colin McFadyen and Chris Hawley will work on the modifications. d) NCF Search Engine Still in Test Mode ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At the end of March Yannick Gravel, NCF System Administrator, installed a test version of the search engine WebGlimpse. We had planned to go live with this in mid-April but have been delayed by the variety of system problems over last few weeks. Currently we are focusing on network upgrades to keep performance up. Secondly, the archiving of unrenewed accounts needs to be wrapped up to improve resource sharing. Then we will be focusing again on the search engine for the week of 26 May. Board member Andre Vellino has also been working no a possible longer term plan which would allow NCF to act as a test site for new searching software. To try it out our test go to http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ncf/wgindex.html e) Adding the PINE Mailreader ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This project will be worked on after the system upgrades and search engine are completed. f) Excessive Commercial Mail (Spam) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Many NCF members, and users of the Internet around the world, are becoming frustrated by the increase in commercial e-mail over the last three months. This is a global phenomena and large ISPs and freenets alike are looking at solutions. If you post to newsgroups outside NCF or surf the web, you are a target for a variety of commercial mailers. The best thing to do is just hit the delete button when you get commercial mail. It is just like those annoying pizza flyers that keep arriving in our mail box and go straight to the recycle bin. Developing solutions will take a little time. Also, we do not want to expend our limited human resources on this project alone for the next three weeks when we could be adding new member services. Instead, we will slowly look at adding solutions as we upgrade. In the short-term we will post educational notices about commerical spams and what you can - and cannot - really do about it. -- ** Lisa K. Donnelly, M.B.A., Executive Director ** * National Capital FreeNet/Libertel de la Capitale nationale * (613) 241-9554 voice & fax (613) 241-2477 Telecommunities Canada - Board member