Executive Director's Report April, 1998 =========================== May 18, 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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We continue to acquire new members at about half the anticipated rate. The average donation is better than expected and the percentage of new registrants who donate is high and accordingly, we are faring a little better with donations. This month in fact, we are slightly over Budget at $3,412. On a year-to-date basis, revenue from new members is under budget by $1,730 or 12%. No. No. % Of Avg. Regist New Budget Regist Memb $ Budget Regist Donat'n Memb. (No.) Var Donate Donate Amount ($) Var Donat'n All New ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ All'97 6,923 2,295 33.2% $47,395 $72,000 -34% $20.65 $6.85 Avg'97 577 191 33.2% $ 3,950 $ 6,000 -34% $20.65 $6.85 Jan. 305 666 -54% 145 47.5% $ 3,308 $ 4,262 -22% $22.81 $10.85 Feb 254 562 -55% 132 52.0% $ 3,246 $ 3,594 -10% $24.59 $12.78 Mar. 242 538 -55% 131 54.1% $ 2,965 $ 3,441 -14% $22.63 $12.25 Apr. 239 526 -55% 117 49.0% $ 3,412 $ 3,364 1% $29.16 $14.28 May 442 $ 2,826 Jun. 512 $ 3,279 Jul. 823 $ 5,268 Aug. 750 $ 4,800 Sep. 767 $ 4,908 Oct. 696 $ 4,454 Nov. 529 $ 3,387 Dec. 413 $ 2,642 ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ YTD'98 1,040 2,292 525 50.5% $12,931 $14,661 $24.63 $12.43 Avg'98 260 573 -55% 131 50.5% $ 3,233 $ 3,665 -12% $24.63 $12.43 c) Donation Data - Renewals ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So far this year, we have renewed 7,757 members, which is 1,936 (9%) less than anticipated in the Budget. The impact on cash however, is more dramatic, with donations from renewals reported at $12,980 under budget for the month, bringing the year-to-date shortfall to $79,317 (-33%). No. % Of Avg. Renwl No. Budget Renwl Renwl $ Budget Renwl Donate Renwl (No.) Var Donate Donate Amount ($) Var Donatn All Ren ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ All'97 13,235 18,000 8,611 65.1% $186,716 $202,500 -8% $21.68 $14.11 Avg'97 1,103 1,500 718 65.1% $ 15,560 $ 16,875 -8% $21.68 $14.11 Jan. 1,544 1,734 -11% 965 62.5% $23,167 $27,123 -15% $24.01 $13.36 Feb 1,320 1,470 -10% 869 65.8% $21,415 $37,467 -43% $24.64 $14.57 Mar. 1,620 1,601 -1% 899 55.5% $22,759 $34,426 -34% $25.32 $14.22 Apr. 1,337 1,616 -17% 938 70.2% $23,555 $36,535 -36% $25.11 $14.58 May 1,336 $34,662 Jun. 478 $23,953 Jul. 206 $ 8,832 Aug. 188 $ 4,551 Sep. 192 $ 4,307 Oct. 174 $ 4,233 Nov. 132 $ 3,643 Dec. 886 $ 8,656 ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ YTD'98 5,821 7.757 3,671 63.1% $90,896 $170,213 $24.76 $15.62 AVG'98 1,455 1,605 -9%% 918 63.1% $22,724 $ 33,888 -33% $24.76 $15.62 c) Membership Activity: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The number of NCF members declined this month to 20,317 (down 3.3%). This decline reflects a higher than typical number of archivals of non-renewing members during the month, at 899. We have been archiving less than 400 per month during the first 3 months of the year. |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 Feb. 20,970 -0.1%|201 104| 254 562 1,320 74 343 Mar. 21,000 0.1%|201 104| 242 538 1,620 13 316 Apr. 20,317 -3.3%|201*104| 239 526 1,337 55 899 * The number of lines is taken at 201, being our original 169 lines plus the new 32 Extended Access lines, which became operational in February. e) Member Usage Data ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The number of weekly sessions on our main modem pool declined to 65,844 (8,576 unique users) This is a drop of about 9% compared to March. PPP connections on the main modem pool remain reasonably stable, averaging 19 users or 10.1%. Usage of the Extended Access server (at Mitel) increased to a maximum of 32 users (100%), averaging 9 users or 28.1% of our capacity there. 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% | Feb. 71,271 9,299 | 52 19 27.7% 10.1% | Mar. 72,417 9,333 | 52 19 27.7% 10.1% | 1.2 Mar.EA | 26 5 54.2% 10.4% | Apr. 65,844 8,576 | 49 19 26.1% 10.1% | Apr.EA* | 32 9 66.7% 18.8% | * EA: traffic on the Extended Access Lines at Our Mitel node f) Sponsorship, Homepage Data and Information Providers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Four new organizations requested organizational accounts this month, bringing our total to 22. The number of I.P.s remained static as did the number of members with personal homepages, although the percentage of total for the latter, rose to 6.5% on account of the decline on total membership, 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% Feb. 2 17| 0 6 | -7 322 67 19.6% |1,316 6.3% Mar. 1 18| 0 6 | -1 321 66 -1.5% |1,319 6.3% Apr. 4* 22| 0 0 | 0 321 65 -1.5% |1,319 6.5% * New Organizational Accounts: Therapy In Motion Melting Rivers Aikido Alzheimer Society of Ottawa-Carleton Orleans Little League g) Government Grants ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (i) Industry Canada Discussions continue with Industry Canada to frame an arrangement wherein NCF can take a contract role in assisting new Urban CAP sites in the Ottawa/Carleton area. h) Public Relations Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FreeNews - monthly is available in text format, at "go freenews" and on the web at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/freenews/. Ads were run in both Monitor Magazine and Ottawa Computes. These ads promoted our "Member-get-a-Member" drive. Monitor Magazine has joined our list of sponsors for this event. They have given us a half-page, full colour ad in their May, June and July issues and air time piggy-backed on their radio ads, to help us to promote this drive. A special Public Service Announcement about our Member-Get-A-Member drive was sent by fax to our usual media contacts as well as to list of area High school computer teachers. The Events Coordination team met recently with representatives of the Citizens for Safe Cycling, to begin planning for the Bike rally proposed for the month of September. This was a preliminary meeting and consisted mainly of discussion. Minutes of this first meeting will be posted in the PRT newsgroup (go prt), as soon as they are available. The next meeting is scheduled for June 2nd. i) Funding Administrivia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The on-line list of donor files was updated to reflect all March donations. Thank You letters were sent to all donors. j) Outreach ~~~~~~~~ During the month, I was given the opportunity to speak to the South Ottawa Rotary, at one of their regular weekly meetings. Sheila Alder will speak to the members of Web-Girls at the inaugural meeting of the Ottawa chapter in May. Seminars are being planned with the Home Business Association of the National Capital Region, to instruct and recruit new members. 2. NCF Administration ====================== a) Top Five Priorities ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Membership Development: Execute Member-Get-A-Member membership drive. (2) Revenue Development: Continue team development, plan and execute funding project(s) (3) System stability & FreeNet Next Generation Project Hardware/software changes to be made to improve system stability. (4) Outreach: Create alliances with other groups to foster membership/usage growth (5) Projects: Pursue Industry Canada funding proposal b) Network Upgrades ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Freenet1 Upgrade continues: We continued to f1 upgrade this month with some minor housekeeping to make sure all routines correctly use the Solaris O/S. This meant changes to pointers, file locations - Moved content of /files12 and /files13 to the filesystem that will be known as /NCF_dsk/freenet1/h1.), aliases etc. (2) Scriptless PPP: All ports on our Mitel server were configured for Scriptless PPP. Similar changes have been made on our main modem pool server although a small upgrade will be required to enable this on the last 5 ports. The software has been ordered and in the interim these lines have been busied out. (3) Freenet News Server: We Upgraded freenet-news CPU module, from a single SuperSparc 36MHz to a dual SuperSparc 50Mhz (previously removed from freenet1 in the last scheduled downtime/upgrade). We installed and configured the 4GB drive and partitioned it to have a 64MB swap partition and the rest as user space. (4) Daily backups: Since f1 is no longer crippled with a high load factor most of the day, we now perform daily incremental backups to the NCF machines. It was necessary to remove them a few years ago because it was taking too long to run the backup jobs. (5) Power shutdown at Carleton A complete power shutdown of Robertson Hall at Carleton University occurred (planned maintenance) Sunday April 26. from 08:00-12:00 All NCF systems were restored by about 14:00. (6) Password File at Mitel: Yannick must still update the gw-mitel.ncf radius users file manually. This means that members who have recently changed their password, or have a new account, may be able to log in on our main modem pool, but not on the Extended Access server. Automating this process for a update on a daily basis from the master password file will be completed in May. (7) We had difficulties with a power supply, providing power to 13 of our modems. Unlike previous blown-fuse occurrences, this malfunction was discovered to be a problem inside a connector (not just a loose plug) and is now repaired. c) FreeNet Next Generation Project ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yannick has completed the first two training segments on Oracle. The software will be installed and tested in May. Once the Oracle software is installed, we will begin to build the Membership management system. In the interim, file location changes, changes to the O/S on Freenet1 and other recent upgrades, build the foundation for FreeNetNG. 3. Member Services and Future Initiatives ========================================== a) Member-Get-A-Member Campaign May 8th, 1998 to July 5th, 1998 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The membership drive was launched May 8, 1998 at the Nepean Sportsplex, in conjunction with a promotion held by one of our sponsors, Myers Chev Olds Cadillac. So far, $961 dollars has been raised from some 136 new members. For daily updates, see: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ncf/signup/progress.html There are four sponsors for the event: Myers, who donated advertising space and a weekend rental of a Cadillac; The Clones Society, who donated the grand prize computer system; Kao Infosystems, who donated diskettes, CD-Roms and software duplication for our auto-install software and GRL Communications (Monitor Magazine) who donated advertising space. The prize list can be seen at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ncf/signup/prizes.html Thanks to Ian Allen (aa610) who made the software changes needed, so the system now sends out two welcome letters when a new account is created. The first letter goes to the new member as usual and has been changed to provide help and contest information. The second letter goes to the member who's account was open at the time the new member completed online registration. This letter reminds the "mentor" of the need to help the new member learn the ropes. c) Progress with Auto-install Diskettes for PPP Connectivity ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Auto install software is now complete, and our thanks go to KAO infosystems, who have donated generously to make it a go. KAO donated 2,000 diskettes, 109 CD-Roms and the labeling and duplication services to make these diskettes a reality. The diskettes are available in one-disk solutions for those who already have browsers installed or full install versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows 3.1 or Windows 95/98. The CD-Roms have all of this, plus Mac auto-install software. We will be preparing and inserting an insert in the CD-Rom jewel cases prior to distributing them to local libraries for lending to members and prospective members. Thanks go to Colin McFayden (aa734), Andre Vellino (an386) And Particularly Richard Bethell (cj434), who all stuck to this project through thick and thin. d) NCF Website ~~~~~~~~~~~ The NCF website continues to grow. See http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ The site has been designed by using a mixture of HTML 4.0 Transitional, with Cascading Style Sheets. The Web-team has recommended this approach rather than the HTML 3.0 compliance discussed in previous Board meetings. After consultation and review, I am inclined to agree with the Team, and have instructed them to proceed with their current approach, with the proviso that NCF pages be tested using earlier browsers. Where the content of the page is disaffected because of missing font colour or positioning tags (center etc.), the necessary attributes will be hard-coded inline. The emphasis however, is to be on the function of the page and these exceptions will be made only when necessary for the page's functionality. e) Web Chat ~~~~~~~~ Much progress has been made to "NCF Chat Street", and I invite you all to view the proposed prototype pages which Richard Bethell has prepared at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~cj434/chat_street/tvern.htm http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~cj434/chat_street/area51.htm http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~cj434/chat_street/htub.htm http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~cj434/chat_street/nike.htm http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~cj434/chat_street/oyster.htm Plans call now for completion of the main introductory page and testing the server software. -- *** Christopher L. Cope, Executive Director *** National Capital Freenet / Libertel de la Capitale nationale tel. (613) 520-2600 ext. 8024 -or- fax (613) 520-3524