Executive Director's Report August, 1997 =========================== September 9, 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 August ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ $3,787.00 New Registrants: 193 individual donations (including 7 for $284.00, separate from registration) plus 7 PFAs 4,895.77 Renewals (261 donations plus 7 PFA renewals) 137.25 Picnic 95.00 Boutique 100.00 Organizational Account (New Frontier) 52.07 U.S. Exchange (gain) -------------------------------------- $ 9,067.09 Total Deposit b) Membership Activity: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Account renewal notices continued to be sent out throughout the month of August. The winding down continues, with only 633, 1st stage notices sent out this month and 448 members renewing. Only 2,108 3rd stage notices were sent this month. This number represents the maximum potential number of accounts to archive in the next two months. 7,739 accounts were archived in August. During the month, 484 new accounts were validated and 68 were unarchived. Our current active membership stands at 27,980 members(64,251 validated since inception). Revenue related membership trends continues to be in accordance with budget in total, although somewhat different in composition. The budget assumes $6,000 from new registrants and $3,000 from renewing members, for a total of $9,000. In August, we received $3,787 from new members and $4,896 was attributable to renewals, for a total of $8,683. We continue to renew a high percentage of members receiving 1st notices. This month, we sent out 633 notices and 448 members renewed (71%) The net loss of 185 non-renewing members is more than offset by 484 new validations. Renewal Data for 10 months: November 1996 to August 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 66.2% 2.3% 2.3% $ 3,063 $5,000 $21.72 Dec. 8,560 1,065 666 62.5% 7.8% 5.5% $15,373 $7,000 $23.08 Jan. 8,219 1,277 1,136 89.0% 13.8% 8.5% $24,278 $31,000 $21.37 Feb. 7,846 2,331 1,495 64.1% 19.1% 11.2% $33,163 $31,000 $22.18 Mar. 8,889 2,190 1,659 75.8% 18.7% 12.8% $31,229 $31,000 $18.82 Apr. 7,817 2,217 1,437 64.8% 18.4% 13.8% $31,738 $31,000 $22.09 May. 3,079 1,831 1,266 69.1% 41.1% 15.4% $25,888 $31,000 $20.45 Jun. 793 654 418 63.9% 52.7% 16.0% $ 8,457 $16,250 $20.23 Jul. 651 605 299 49.4% 45.9% 16.4% $ 5,502 $ 3,000 $18.40 Aug. 633 448 261 58.3% 41.2% 16.7% $ 4,896 $ 3,000* $18.76 ~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ 52,642 12,831 8,778 68.4% * The total Registration budget for August 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 September 1, 1997) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Statistics obtained from the September 1 "create accounts" procedure show that there are currently 27,980 Uids active (leaving 37,555 free Uids from the maximum available of 65,535). Since inception, 64,251 members have been validated. The following calculation illustrates the number of archived accounts as at September 1, 1997: Total number of validated ever: 64,251 Total number of accounts in use: 27,980 ------ Total archived 36,271 d) Organizational Accounts ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ New Frontier opened an organizational account in August. e) August Connection Sponsors ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There were no new Connection sponsors in august. f) Government Grants ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We continue to be optimistic that our request for grant funding for our online job-search training project will be looked on favorably. g) Public Relations Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The September issue of the NCF Newsletter "FreeNews" was sent out to the mailing list and is now online (go freenews) and is also available on the Web at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/public-relations/ A special "hard-copy" issue of FreeNews was created for NCF's Key Partners and Connection Sponsors and was sent to them by fax. The PRT has produced a quarterly newsletter, "The INFO", specifically aimed at NCF's Information Providers/Managers and was sent to all IPs/IMs. This is available online in the Public Relations menu area, (go prt), option 6 and has been posted in the Information Management newsgroup (ncf.admin.information-management). A fax was sent to all area High schools outlining the benefits of coordinating their individual Student Co-op programs with NCF. As a result of this request and continuing contact with schools who participated in previous years we are completely booked with Co-op students for the fall term and have preliminary interest shown for the first term of 1998. Ads were run in both Monitor and Ottawa Computes. This month's ads target returning students, and suggests advantages such as e-mail, discussion etc. which are available with NCF membership. Andre Ouelette (PRT Coordinator) has been contacted by a representative of News1, (the all news network affiliate of CTV), who is working on a story, which if aired, could generate favorable national attention for NCF's "Spambusters" and their efforts to rid us of junk mail. The Net-abuse team will also provide information. A contra arrangement has been finalized with radio station CKCU-FM 93.1, in which NCF provides a Showcase and Line-Sponsorship package in exchange for one radio commercial daily at rotating time slots. Two commercials have been scripted to run alternately and sent to the station manager. g) Funding Administrivia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The online list of donor files was updated to reflect all August donations. Thank You letters were sent to all donors. Goldberg, Shinder, Gardner & Kronick have confirmed that they will not be renewing their sponsorship this year. 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. Details for each project follow in Section 3. (1) Strategic Plan A Strategic Plan, which will serve as a basis for the 1998 budgeting process, has been prepared and circulated to the Board Members. (2) Extended Access A scheme for evening use of a Key Partner's telephone lines is confirmed and is expected to be in operation by October. (3) Search Engine Two Search engines have been installed, configured and are in test. (4) FreeNet NextGeneration Project Planning is underway, to determine the best hardware/software configuration plan for the future of the NCF system (see details below). (5) Student Co-op Program A program to contact High schools has been implemented with significant success (see below). b) Network Upgrades ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Two search engines have been installed and (re-)configured: WebGlimpse, which has been in test mode for some time and ht://Dig. Both engines were configured and procedures initiated for weekly indexing. Additional detail is provided below in Member Services. 2. During the latter two thirds of the month, attention was focused on stability and problem solving. This period was affected by periodic slowdowns of gw.ncf (the "Gateway" machine). The way gw.ncf works has been changed dramatically in order to fix the problem. Throughout this time, we were convinced that the problem was entirely on our side, but it has been discovered that we have been the victim of several probes (and probably some denial of service attacks). Changes which have been made to the system result in our ability to sustain this without major impact. c) FreeNet NextGeneration Project ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Planning continues, 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. The current details (very early and not yet complete) are available at http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/sysadmin/ng/index.html 3. Member Services and Future Initiatives ========================================== a) Strategy ~~~~~~~~ A Strategic plan for 1998 has been developed and circulated to Board separately Members. The plan has been developed as a foundation for the 1998 planning process. The specific objectives and priorities identified in the plan will provide a framework for the development of an Operations Plan an will serve as a guideline for the 1998 budget process. b) Extended Access ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Cisco Systems has confirmed the donation of an AS5100 terminal server (48 port complete with 28.8kbps modems) and is shipping it directly to Mitel for installation. Mitel has confirmed that an analog connection (which this box needs) to their PBX is okay. Bell must confirm the reconfiguration of our phone lines, but we will most likely direct overflow calls to our Internet Sampler lines to the Mitel site Once the Extended Access Project equipment is installed and tested at Mitel, we will prepare for the press announcement and possible reception event. We hope to introduce the auto-install diskettes at the same time. c) Search Engine ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Two search engines have been installed and configured: WebGlimpse, which has been in test mode for some time, was reconfigured to initiate a weekly indexing process which looks at all HTML documents and all text-based menus on the system, at the file level, Certain file groups were excluded. ht://Dig, was similarly configured and is now also in test mode. Both can be found at http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/search.html a Web page which contains both search engines and a link to a feedback form which is designed to generate user preferences. After testing, only one of these search engines will be kept in operation. d) Student Co-op Program ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A letter was sent to all High Schools in the region and telephone calls were made to all previous contacts, to inform them of NCF's success with co-op programs. Response was excellent and we have 2 students from St. Matthew's High School in Orleans working 5 mornings per week until mid-January. In addition, we will have 4 students from Sir Robert Borden High School working 5 afternoons per week, again until mid January. One of these students is in a marketing program and accordingly, will be working on our marketing program to build our Organizational account base. e) Spam blocking & Pornographic UBE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Members continue to report less Unsolicited Bulk E-Mail UBE) in their mailboxes, although some UBE continues to get through our filters. On August 26, Andrew Nellis the Net-abuse Moderator reported that a particularly offensive explicit pornographic message had been received by some NCF members. The sending domain (a Hong Kong site) was blocked as were three relay sites who had forwarded the message. The Regional Police force is now investigating. Our protective measures and response to this was the subject of an Ottawa Citizen article by Jeremy Mercer on August 28, 1997, which presented NCF favorably. f) Archiving/Unarchiving continues ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As can be seen in the table above, we have archived approximately 36,271 accounts since the process began. As in previous months, the archiving step itself, serves as a prompt for some members to renew their account. In August, we received 68 requests for unarchival, bringing the total of accounts unarchived YTD to 182. g) Progress with Auto-install Diskettes for PPP Connectivity ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Richard Bethel has completed an auto-install version of Microsoft Internet Explorer for both Windows 95 and 3.1. These diskettes are currently being tested. The Mac version works, although because of variety of Operating Systems and browsers, the user is required to do a bit of configuration. Andre Vellino has completed this version and the help documents which assist members with this remaining configuration. Colin Mcfayden and Chris Hawley will complete similar auto-install versions of Netscape for both Windows platforms. h) Bank Interest ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Scotiabank will continue to waive most service charges on our bank account, a substantial factor in light of the many small cheques and cash amounts in our deposits. Further, the account will now bear interest at a rate of prime less four percent (as of today, prime is 4 3/4%, so our interest would be 3/4%). We also have an opportunity to transfer funds, from time to time to "Cashable GICs" Scotiabank will give us the one-year interest rate (today 2 3/4%). We must leave the money in the GIC for a minimum of 30 days, but thereafter could collapse some or all of the GIC, without penalty. The GIC is backed by Scotiabank and fully insured under the Federal Depositors Insurance scheme and accordingly as secure a place for our money as the bank account itself. -- *** Christopher L. Cope, Executive Director *** National Capital Freenet / Libertel de la Capitale nationale voice (613) 820-8885 -or- fax (613) 820-3982