Executive Director's Report January, 1998 =========================== February 10, 1998 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) Donation Data - New Registrations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At 305, new member registration is considerably under our prediction of 666 new members. Accordingly, revenue from new members at $3,308.00 is well under the $4,262.00 we expected. 47.5% of the new members in January donated, compared to an average of 37.2% last year. The average donation of $10.85 is up 57% from the 1997 average, and well above the $6.40 predicted. The donation average (all new registrations) of $22.81 is higher than the $20.00 Budget assumption. Number Number %Of $ Amount Average New New Memb New Memb Registration Registration Members Donations Donating Donations Donation ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ May. 367 191 52.0% $3,229.00 $16.91 Jun. 654 102 15.6% $1,940.00 $19.02 Jul. 651 218 33.5% $3,942.00 $18.08 Aug. 484 193 39.9% $3,503.00 $18.15 Sep. 467 179 38.3% $3,328.00 $18.59 Oct. 314 158 50.3% $2,754.00 $17.43 Nov. 234 114 48.7% $2,396.00 $21.02 Dec. 193 97 50.3% $2,124.00 $21.90 ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ All 97 3,364 1,252 $23,216.00 Avg 97 421 157 37.2% $ 2,902.00 $18.54 (1252 Donors) Avg 97 $ 6.90 (All new acc) Jan. 305 145 47.5% $3,308.00 $22.81 ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ All 98 305 145 $3,308.00 Avg 98 305 145 47.5% $ 3,308.00 $22.81 (145 Donors) Avg 98 $10.85 (All new acc) c) Donation Data - Renewals ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fewer members renewed in January at 1,544 vs. 1,734 anticipated in the Budget. The variance in renewals is not as dramatic as that with registration. The average renewal donation in January however was $24.01 which fall short of the $32.50 predicted. With 62.5% of renewing members donation however, the average overall donation of $15.00 is also well under the predicted $$21.61. Number Number %Of $ Amount Average Of Renewal Renewals Renewal Renewal Renewals Donations Donating Donations Donation ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ May. 1,831 1,266 69.1% $25,887.70 $20.45 Jun. 654 418 63.9% $ 8,486.51 $20.30 Jul. 605 299 49.4% $ 5,502.00 $18.40 Aug. 448 268 59.8% $ 4,895.77 $18.27 Sep. 320 204 63.8% $ 3,920.40 $19.22 Oct. 248 122 49.2% $ 2,283.47 $18.72 Nov. 266 142 53.4% $ 3,425.00 $24.12 Dec. 728 466 64.0% $11,902.00 $25.54 ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ All 97 5,100 3,185 $66,302.85 Avg 97 638 398 62.5% $ 8,287.86 $20.82 (3185 Donors) Avg 97 $13.00 (All renewal) Jan. 1,544 965 62.5% $23,166.76 $24.01 ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ All 98 1,544 965 $23,166.76 Avg 98 1,544 965 62.5% $23,166.76 $24.01 (965 Donors) Avg 98 $15.00 (All renewal) c) Membership Activity in January: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Membership declined slightly in January to 20,996. Both renewals and new member registration fell below forecast, but with an opening membership of 21,125, the current total membership is larger than the anticipated 17,700. |Member | Current |To line| Actual |Ratio |Number Forecast Number Number Number # of % inc.| |Of New No. of Members Members Members Members -dec. |Lns :1 |Members Members Renewed Un-arch Archvd. ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~|~~~~~~~| ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ May. 62,877 n/a|169 372| 372 1,831 0 0 Jun. 43,170 -31.3%|169 255| 654 654 18 20,361 Jul. 28,280 -34.5%|169 167| 651 605 103 7,919 Aug. 27,980 - 1.1%|169 166| 484 448 68 7,739 Sep. 22,996 -17.8%|169 136| 467 320 100 6,145 Oct. 21,527 - 6.4%|169 127| 314 248 76 1,870 Nov. 21,361 -0.8%|169 126| 234 529 266 61 501 Dec. 21,125 -1.1%|169 125| 193 413 728 42 421 Jan. 20,996 -0.6%|169 124| 305 666 1,544 16 495 e) Member Usage Data ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PPP usage is increasing dramatically, with as many as 52 simultaneous PPP sessions at peak. The typical (average) PPP load has increased from 20.7% to its current 27.7% position. The program to gather statistics about the number of busy signals experienced by members is in test mode. Currently the voice-mail ring on the telephone line used for gathering statistics, causes the program to terminate and the data collected so far is not a truly representative sample. No. Of No. Of | Max # Avg # Max % Avg.% | Avg. Weekly Unique | PPP PPP PPP PPP | No. Sessions Users | Users Users Usage Usage | Busy ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~ Sep. | 9.3% 0.7% | Oct. 80,169 | 3.3% 2.0% | Nov. 74,359 10,150 | 39 12 13.3% 6.4% | Dec. 74,816 9,655 | 39 14 20.7% 7.4% | Jan. 74,270 9,683 | 52 19 27.7% 10.1% | f) Sponsorship, Homepage Data and Information Providers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The number of IPs* has remained fairly static and the number of IP homepages actually dropped by one. The number of member Member homepages increased quite significantly to 1,310 (6.2%of total membership). * The number of IPs is based on an auto-generated list available at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/auto-gen/ip-index/ALL.html Similarly, number of IPs using FreePages is harvested from an auto-generated list at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ncf/information-providers.html Finally, the number of Member homepages is harvested from an auto-generated list (sectioned) at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ncf/homepages/byuser.html New Total | New Total | IP Incr. | Member % Org. Org. | Line Line | New Total Free -Dec. | Home of Accts Accts | Spons Spons | IPs IPs Pages % | Page Memb ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~ Apr. | 1 1 | 2 | May. 4 4| 1 2 | 4 | Jun. 0 4| 1 3 | 2 | Jul. 1 5| 1 4 | 2 | Aug. 1 6| 0 4 | 2 | Sep. 2 8| 0 4 | 1 | Oct. 3 11| 0 4 | 1 | Nov. 3 14| 0 4 | +/-300 55 |1,224 5.7%* Dec. 0 14| 1 5 | 1 301* 57 3.6% |1,205 5.7%* Jan. 1 15| 1 6 | 28 329 56 -1.8% |1,310 6.2% * restated for previous months to correct error. g) Government Grants ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (i ) Regional Municipality OF Ottawa-Carleton We continue to wait for a decision from RMOC. No decision will be made in respect to 1998 grant applications until March. A final report for our 1996 grant (last instalment received in 1997 was submitted to RMOC in January. h) Public Relations Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The February issue of FreeNews was distributed to mailing lists, placed on-line in the Freeport menus (go freenews) and published to the web at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/freenews/). This edition featured a graphic version of an invitation to the NCF birthday party and this year's Annual General Meeting. Ads in both Monitor Magazine, and Ottawa Computes featured the 5th Anniversary celebrations, offering an open invitation for all to join the festivities. Birthday Party & Extended Access Launch ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ John Lacharity from CBO Morning, was Master of Ceremonies, lending an air of professionalism and warmth to the event. Regional Councillor Al Loney was Key-note speaker. James Schofield (dj271), the winner of the Homepage design contest was announced and Regional Councillor Munter was on hand to assist Pat Drummond with the presentation of the prizes valued in excess of $1,000. We enjoyed prominently positioned press for this event. The Ottawa Sun ran a great story with a photo, (temporarily viewable at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/execdir/Mitel.GIF) CBC ran a bit from the news conference on the evening news, and Carol-anne Meehan plugged the event on her evening CJOH program. We had camera coverage for the evening celebration on the late CJOH (CTV) news which was also re-broadcast the following morning. Monitor Magazine will carry a piece in their forthcoming issue and John Lacharity interviewed me on his morning CBC radio show the morning of the event. Our Key partners for this event were pleased to have their names featured in these publications. i) Funding Administrivia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The on-line list of donor files was updated to reflect all January donations. Thank You letters were sent to all donors. 2. NCF Administration ====================== a) Top Five Priorities ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Extended Access Implementation of a scheme for evening use of a Key Partner's telephone lines. It's a "go" for February (2) Events - The NCF 5th Birthday Party - NCF Webpage design contest (3) Web issues Webserver changes - hardware/software upgrades continuing to improve performance, Review continues regarding Carleton's T1 Internet connection. (4) System stability & FreeNet Next Generation Project Hardware/software changes to be made to improve system stability. System Administrator to receive Oracle Training (5) Annual General Election Working with AGM team to get systems, call for motions, menus etc. b) Network Upgrades ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On January 10th, BB (Big Brother) was installed and activated on ng-services-1.ncf. This tool monitors only some of the possible parameters for now, but as time permits other sub-systems will be added. The tool has the capability of sending e-mail or an alpha page to the System Administrator in case of system problems. As soon as a pager gateway setup can be installed on one of our machines with external modem connection, it will be configured to do this. Results of Big Brother can be viewed at: http://www-services.ncf.carleton.ca/bb/bb.html The System was monitored by the volunteer "Sysadmin" team while the System Administrator was away (January 19th to 26th). Thanks go out to the team, and particularly Roy Hooper, John Stewart, and Ian Allen. While the Sysadmin was away, problems were encountered with the Newsserver. John Stewart used the opportunity to upgrade the freenet-news machine to Solaris 2.6. It appeared however, that the problem was related to overheating and John moved the disk into another drive cabinet. The temporary cabinet provides much better cooling but was designed for full height drives and doesn't fit into the shelf location where the old drive cabinet resided. Rearrangement of equipment during the next scheduled downtime is planned. c) FreeNet Next Generation Project ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Marc Bellefeuille, of Sun Microsystems has submitted his recommendations to senior Sun management following his review of our requirements. We expect to learn the details of Sun's donation shortly. Sun is interested in show-casing their mail software (based on Sendmail), and may wish to combine hardware and software in the package. Oracle training sessions for Yannick were postponed until February. This training, which consists of two one-week periods (Feb. 9 to 13 and Feb. 23 to 27th) is part of Oracle's donation to FreeNet. A much improved member information database, using donated Oracle software will be the corner block of FreeNet Next Generation. 3. Member Services and Future Initiatives ========================================== a) Extended Access ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At the Birthday Celebration (February 4th), we launched the Extended Access program. These 32 new lines increase our dial-up connection capacity during peak hours by 20%. From 6:00 PM. until 6:00 am. weekdays and 24 hours a day long on weekends, members will be able to make a PPP connection, using 32 of Mitel Corporation's telephone lines. In addition to Mitel Corporation's generous donation of the use of their lines, they supplied the Pentium PC to act as proxy/cache server, the necessary router and all networking components to get this project going. Cisco Systems donated an AS5100 terminal server complete with 28.8 Kbps modems. The new lines can be accessed by modem at 271-9768. If connection at a non-operational time a "fast busy" tone will be returned. A one-time fee of $2,300 was required for Bell Canada to program the DMS switch and there will be a monthly charge for the dial-up number of approximately $50.00. b) NCF Website Design Contest ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Schofield (dj2710, a high school student from Orleans Ontario is the winner. Nancy Shaver (bh530) was runner up and Jameswin Salim (cn122) was 3rd. All entries, including the winning pages can be viewed at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/contest/ Pat Drummond (xx995), co-ordinator of the Documentation Team, is assembling a Web Site implementation team, to install a new page for NCF, based upon the winner's submission and incorporating other necessary functions and possibly elements from other contest submissions. Our winner, James Schofield will be assistant co-ordinator for this team. c) Progress with Auto-install Diskettes for PPP Connectivity ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Final adjustments to the auto-install diskettes will be made to provide for the Extended Access telephone number. This final step must wait however until the log-in screen and authentication process is finalized. Once this final adjustment and some other minor fine tuning is complete, both diskette and CD-Rom versions will be available for distribution. The Ottawa Public Library is interested as a lending site for the CD. d) Web Chat ~~~~~~~~ Natalie Munroe (xx966)and her team, including Richard Bethell (cj434), Peter Boddy (bx955), Brad Hudson (cd502) and Katherine Allen (dk255) are working on a concept plan to build this new service. The Web Chat area will run on server software to be donated by Magna communications. e) AGM Software ~~~~~~~~~~~~ the AGM voting software will be installed on freenet8, a machine provided on a temporary basis by Carleton University (CCS). The AGM hard-disk from last year will be slipped in and the machine set up February 9th and 10th. Content update will commence on February 11th. Testing will be done on Feb. 12th and 13th. This leaves a one week buffer until voting starts on February 23rd, necessary luxury as our Sysadmin's availability will be reduced -- *** Christopher L. Cope, Executive Director *** National Capital Freenet / Libertel de la Capitale nationale tel. (613) 520-2600 ext. 8024 -or- fax (613) 520-3524