National Capital FreeNet Board of Directors Meeting July 21, 1998 - 7:00 p.m. The Olde Forge Community Resource Centre - 2730 Carling Avenue Present: Miranda Gray ak717 Jessica Cohen aa724 David Sutherland, President aa001 Chris Hawley (late) ah654 Andrew Nellis bs904 Michael Mason an956 Natalie Munro aa966 Jim Elder aa456 Jean Wilmot aa145 Andre Ouellette bf766 Absent: Jeff Bossert (regrets) au025 NCF Staff Present: Sheila Alder bw306 Yannick Gravel, System Administrator dt136 Chris Cope, Executive Director bz787 NCF members: Richard Bethell cj434 Others: E.O'Driscoll, minute taker af995 (Jean Wilmot's friend Ken McKinlay) 1. INTRODUCTIONS Dave Sutherland took the Chair with M Mason as Secretary. 2. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING OF THE BOARD Moved by Miranda Gray and seconded by Jean Wilmot to approve the minutes of the June 1998 meeting. All in favour except Jim Elder and Andrew Nellis as they were absent for that meeting (abstained) 3. REVIEW OF THE AGENDA FOR THIS MEETING a) Picnic update by Andre Ouellette: b) Jim Elder wished to discuss strategies for NCF. 4. OLD BUSINESS 5. REPORTS a) Treasurer's Report (Jeff Bossert) Jean Wilmot presented the highlights in Jeff's place. Please refer to the full text for complete report: -As mentioned before, members are donating at a lower level than expected; -System access costs have been reduced subsequent to negotiations with Carleton -Excess of Revenue over Expenses is a net loss, the cash is being depleted a little faster than expected. b) Executive Director's Monthly Report (Chris Cope) New members: There was a record month for new member signups but many of the new members are not donating or not donating very much. To help mitigate that the registration date for signing up a new member in the "member-get-a-member" contest has been extended. Fewer renewals have been received than expected. Therefore the revenue is significantly under budget. Actual membership activity is down to around 19K. Usage is harder to analyse, however, the estimated total weekly sessions are in the vicinity of 66,000, which again is down from last year. Number of member homepages is approx. 6% - relatively unchanged from before. Information providers' homepages are approximately the same except that the effect of the PSAC homepage is likely not felt yet, as not many people actually know about the site yet. PSAC has a large membership and NCF could stand to benefit from exposure to this group of people. Industry Canada: A proposal is being prepared by Jeff Bossert and will be looking at communities of interest (including senior citizens, arts groups etc). The draft will be presented to the BoD. Harvest Ride: (Andre Ouellette) The mention to 40K ride is correctly stated as 45K. All rides will start at the Newbridge site. Short discussion about the type of sponsorship (in-kind donations vs. cash, rider pledges etc.) and the expected number of riders etc. Outreach efforts: Have been getting help with a variety of NCF things. There is a very good model in the Vancouver Community Net and how they manage their site and attract community involvement. Seniors Net: Abbottsford House plans to have a (site) by the fall. The telephone line for the public access terminal is already installed. About 400 members use the Abbottsford House centre daily. 1100 members in the (Kiwanian Alex Dayton Senior's Activity Centre) near Carlingwood. There are two key volunteers in place. Good Companions Centre: Still in the planning stage, as the volunteers are not yet assigned. Replacement of Sys-Admin: Currently searching for a replacement for Yannick Gravel. Chris Cope provided modem usage data that indicates that busy signals would be likely during the day, even at current levels of usage, when the 48 lines are dropped. There was some discussion about asking members if they would prefer to donate to support retention of the lines. Further discussion was deferred to later in the meeting, during discussion of strategy. Modems: Magma Communications Inc. are donating some modems that are welcome but may have to be monitored, as they seemed to run hot. However they were housed in a non-airconditioned room which will not be the case at NCF. Therefore we look forward to better performance with these modems. If not, they may be candidates for the yearly auction sale. Member-get-a-Member Contest: Seems to be worth the effort, based on current numbers. There is some good feedback. However the process needs to be streamlined and the number of steps/rules reduced. It might be more 'fun' that way. Webchat: Many thanks to Richard Bethell for his excellent work on Webchat. FTP: Appreciation to Yannick for the new FTP application. More than one person may now ftp to a single directory and this will help people maintaining homepages. This will be a valuable and popular addition to the NCF. Monthly Messages: Yannick Gravel has implemented this feature which has proved useful to help inform members. Plus, there has been very little in terms of negative feedback, i.e. members are not perceiving this as spam, in fact there have been several people who have contacted the Executive Director with thanks for the info. This message will not be sent out more than once a month at the most-some months there may be no 'monthly message'. Misc: When helping new/potential members, care must be taken to explain the acronyms and be explicit when giving instructions or advice. Questions from Jim Elder about what was learned during the membership drive about people's motivations for joining and what terminology people use when thinking of internet and NCF services. Chris Cope explained that many people still think of NCF as a text-only service; that people do not use the term 'PPP'; that cost-comparisons (eg., between NCF and ISPs) do not seem to be frequent; etc. In short, 'consumers' do not seem to be well-informed. Further discussion was deferred to the strategy discussion later in the meeting. 6. NEW BUSINESS a) Corporation Officers Position (MM) MM turned over the floor to Andre Ouellette Motion Proposed by AO that Jeff Bossert be appointed to second vice-president of NCF: Seconded by MM. Current Officers DS President MM First VP and Secretary Jeff Bossert Treasurer Votes for the motion: In Favor: DS JE CH JW NM MM AO AN Opposed: MG Abstained: JC Motion carried Second Motion: Proposed by MM that Andre Ouellette be named Secretary until the end of the current term. Seconded by Natalie Munro. Votes for the motion: In Favor: DS JE CH JW NM MM AO AN JC MG Motion carried (unanimous). b) Time Limits Review (Natalie Munro) --Would like to see the peak hours adjusted to include more daytime hours. Some discussion about extending the non-peak period until noon. I.e. Non - peak might be midnight to noon. Chris Cope related the differences in usage between the Mitel lines and the other. It would appear as if the ratios are somewhat similar which would mean that the impact of a change in peak hours might not be drastic. Sheila Alder remarked that people might appreciate this change so that they will end up with more access. Some discussions on when to do this, i.e. time it so that it coincides with the line reduction and the 30-minute web change and the modem change etc. Per Andrew Nellis: NCF seems to never have busy signals and the newsgroups do not seem to be busy and this will give the public the impression that NCF is a 'ghost town'. Further discussion on the line usage numbers. As a matter of course, the ED has the authority to adjust the peak time hours and will give further consideration to the issue. Additional comments by Chris Cope about the pros & cons of extending the time limits. Discussion of the New Agenda Items: a) Picnic Update (Andre Ouellette) Picnic was a success. Approximately 80 people attended and all comments to-date were positive. Site and weather were great. Suggestions for next year is to delay the start time by a couple of hours as it was slow to start also some members would like better notice that there will be food available. Britannia has advantages over Vincent Massey Park as there is free parking and NCF can sell food etc. Nick Maack (ac002) has written an excellent report on the picnic. Per Andrew Nellis the write-up may be viewed in ncf.general. Many thanks to Andre Ouellette for his efforts with respect to the picnic. b) Strategies for NCF: Dave Sutherland gave a quick review of the history of NCF and there was some discussion on how to promote NCF and keep it healthy. Miranda Gray asked how much it would cost to close NCF and how low the balance can go before the board members must cover the costs themselves. Arrangements would have to be made for a final audit and closing off of the lines etc. Per J Elder, "The last time NCF was in a similar position the idea of renewal process was conceived and perhaps an appeal to the members is again in order, given the dire situation being reported and measures being considered, such as reducing services (modem lines); perhaps members would prefer to donate more to retain current services." The average donation is $24 and not everyone donates and this is the core of the problem. Jean Wilmot suggested that NCF does not do enough to make members aware of the importance of donating some money. Sheila Alder noted that in her experience, "There is a perception that NCF is funded by either or both of a) Government or b) Carleton University, where in fact NCF now relies entirely on donations from members". Response to the suggestion for donation in the last Message of the Month was very poor. It was generally agreed that NCF needs to be more aggressive about publicizing where it stands financially and what it will take to meet the financial targets. It was suggested that a permanent 'cash-o-meter' using a varied approach could be put in place to make users aware of what money is required to keep the service going. A lottery of some sort was proposed. It was thought that the membership might be approached, referendum style, with the options open to NCF. 'Online Referendum'. This was well received by the board members and some discussion about how to organise followed. It was then suggested that when presented, the referendum questions include an option to donate immediately so that no time is lost given the tight timeframe. Brainstorming: -- Obtaining 'charity status'; -- Charging membership dues; -- Merging some functions (e.g. Chat) with Carleton; -- Lack of media attention by The Citizen and The Sun; -- Bus ads -- Reviewing methods of getting current members to donate. -- Advertising. -- That alliances may be established with ISP that do not service 'older' machines such that they would refer people with such machines to NCF; -- Publicity campaign to promote the new, graphical interface -- Bring back the sex newsgroups. -- NCF drop references to 'FreeNet' and use the acronym NCF/LCN exclusively. -- Yannick to register the domain ncf.ca ASAP in anticipation of a name change. -- Everytime a reference is made to FreeNet in text there be a footnote that explains that FreeNet is supported almost solely by donations. -- NCF would benefit from focusing more on Ottawa news to the point where it might become the best source of local Internet news. -- NCF could offer email only accounts where advertising would be allowed (similar to the Hotmail set-up) with the intent of increasing revenue. -- Set up a 'cash-o-meter' -- Modify the login menu to remind members to donate. Chris to negotiate with The Citizen to get some advertising. Earlier he handed out a draft brochure of NCF info and requested feedback. Andrew Nellis asked the board if he could inquire with Walt Rines about how much NCF might receive for allowing them to send advertising to NCF members. Chris Cope asked for 3 volunteers to draft the referendum: Jean Wilmot, Jim Elder and Dave Sutherland. Jean offered to produce the first draft. 7. DATE OF NEXT MEETING August 18, 1998 - St.Laurent Branch, Ottawa Public Library 8. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 9:25 p.m.