Executive Director's Report October 1998 =========================== November 15, 1998 By Christopher L. Cope (execdir@freenet.carleton.ca) Contents: 1. Administration & Funding 2. Member Services and Future Initiatives 3. System Administration 1. Administration & Funding =========================== a) Donation Data - New Registrations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There were 220 new registrations in October, well below (-68%) our forecast of 696. Donations arising from new registrations fared a little better at $3,064 or 31% below The budgeted $4,454. On a year-to-date basis, we are under Budget by $9,081 or -23%. 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 222 442 -50% 123 55.4% $ 3,067 $ 2,826 9% $24.93 $13.82 Jun. 462 512 -10% 153 33.1% $ 3,301 $ 3,279 1% $21.58 $ 7.15 Jul. 591 823 -28% 153 25.8% $ 3,551 $ 5,268 -33% $23.21 $ 6.01 Aug. 356 750 -53% 114 32.0% $ 2,338 $ 4,800 -51% $20.51 $ 6.57 Sep. 256 767 -67% 119 46.5% $ 2,863 $ 4,908 -42% $24.06 $11.18 Oct. 220 696 -68% 119 54.1% $ 3,064 $ 4,454 -31% $25.75 $13.93 Nov. 529 $ 3,387 Dec. 413 $ 2,642 ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ YTD'98 3,147 6,282 1,306 41.5% $31,115 $40,196 -23% $23.82 $ 9.89 Avg'98 315 628 -50% 131 41.5% $ 3,112 $ 4,020 -23% $23.82 $ 9.89 b) Donation Data - Renewals ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Renewals were considerably stronger than anticipated, with 243 (+40%) members renewing and donations of $5,546 (+31%). Much of this strong response may be attributable to the donation drive. Although the month was strong, our year-to-date position is $77,945 (-36%)under Budget. 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 $15.00 Feb 1,320 1,470 -10% 869 65.8% $21,415 $ 37,467 -43% $24.64 $16.22 Mar. 1,620 1,601 -1% 899 55.5% $22,759 $ 34,426 -34% $25.32 $14.05 Apr. 1,337 1,616 -17% 938 70.2% $23,555 $ 36,535 -36% $25.11 $17.62 May 1,028 1,336 -23% 653 63.5% $15,838 $ 34,662 -54% $24.25 $15.41 Jun. 670 478 40% 428 63.9% $ 9,410 $ 23,953 -61% $21.99 $14.05 Jul. 476 206 131% 333 70.0% $ 6,657 $ 8,832 -25% $19.99 $13.99 Aug. 310 188 65% 218 70.3% $ 4,722 $ 4,551 4% $21.66 $15.23 Sep. 246 192 28% 214 87.0% $ 5,075 $ 4,307 18% $23.71 $20.63 Oct. 243 174 40% 235 96.7% $ 5,546 $ 4,233 31% $23.60 $22.82 Nov. 132 $ 3,643 Dec. 886 $ 8,656 ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ YTD'98 8,794 8,995 -2% 5,752 65.4% $138,144 $216,089 -36% $24.02 $15.71 AVG'98 879 900 -2% 575 65.4% $ 13,814 $ 21,609 -36% $24.02 $15.71 c) Funding Drive ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The funding drive closed with a total of 959 members donating $30,175. These donations were separate from donations relating to new member registration and renewals. While somewhat under our $40,000 goal, the drive is judged a success and the funds raised are sufficient to get us through our current cash shortage No. of Period Donors Donation ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ 30-31 Jul 98 11 $ 300 August 98 267 $ 9,013 September 98 374 $11,711 October 98 307 $ 9,151 ~~~ ~~~~~~~ 959 $30,175 d) Membership Activity: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We have not archived any overdue accounts since July. Accounts that would have been archived are left in "hibernate" stage at 10 minutes access. Accordingly. the figure 19,343 overstates our membership. Based on previous history, this number is likely to be approximately 17,500. Now that a new Sysadmin is on board, archiving will be resumed. |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 May. 19,332 -4.8%|201 96| 222 442 1,028 43 1,255 June 18,779 -2.9%|201 96| 462 512 670 62 1,095 July 18,517 -1.4%|201 92| 591 823 476 40 911 Aug. 18,867 1.9%|201 94| 356 750 310 - - Sep. 19,130 1.4%|201 95| 256 767 246 - - Oct. 19,343 1.1%|201 96| 220 696 243 - - d) Member Usage Data ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Usage continues to decline on the main modem pool with some 270 fewer unique users logging in a typical week this month compared to last and about 3,000 fewer than at the beginning of the year. Most of this reduction is related to the reduction in the number of members, but some usage has moved to the Extended Access (Mitel) lines. Even now, when our capacity at Mitel has been increased to 44 lines (42 at the end of October), these lines are fully occupied from about 7:00 PM until midnight. The second table below illustrates that members are able to connect to NCF with only one attempt approximately 93% of the time, with the worst-case requiring 9 attempts (busy/redial) to connect. This represents a degradation from last month however (94% on one try) and problems have been discovered with time limits enforcement for PPP users. 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% | May 64,439 8,235 | 58 22 30.9% 11.7% | 1.1 May EA | 34 12 70.8% 25.0% | Jun 60,643 11,109 | 62 26 33.0% 13.8% | 1.1 Jun EA 4,992 910 | 34 12 70.8% 25.0% | Jul. 59,638 7,470 | 67 30 35.6% 16.0% | 1.1 Jul EA | 34 12 70.8% 25.0%| Aug. 57,236 7,203 | 68 32 68.0% 32.0% | 1.1 Aug EA | 35 15 72.9% 31.3% | Sep. 51,664 7,016 | 71 31 37.8% 16.5% | 1.2 Sep EA | 37 16 77.1% 22.9% | Oct. 50,690 6,746 | 68 27 45.3% 18.0% | 1.2 ** see below Oct EA* | 42 19 87.5% 39.6% | * EA: traffic on the Extended Access Lines at Our Mitel node ** Results obtained from software to test for busy signals (the aggregate results for the periods 98/10/30 16:45 to 98/11/01 22:33 and 98/11/02 17:49 to 98/11/04 10:27): Connect on 9 attempts: 1 0.1% Average: 1.2 Connect on 8 attempts: 8 0.5% Median: 1.0 Connect on 7 attempts: 6 0.3% Maximum: 9.0 Connect on 6 attempts: 10 0.5% Connect on 5 attempts: 16 0.9% Connect on 4 attempts: 21 1.1% Connect on 3 attempts: 22 1.2% Connect on 2 attempts: 45 2.4% Connect on 1 attempts: 1,712 92.9% ~~~~~ ~~~~~ Total in sample: 1,842 100.0% e) Sponsorship, Homepage Data and Information Providers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Three new org accounts were issued this month to John Crump, Learning Disabilities Association of Ottawa-Carleton and Katherine Woodgold respectively. PSAC and Huntclub Community Association and The Mainstreeter each re-donated $100 each to confirm their continuing interest in maintaining an NCF org account. There were no changes to line sponsorships. We added one new IP for a total of 309 and 12 new member homepages for a total of 1, 201. 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 6 | 0 321 65 -1.5% |1,319 6.5% May 4 26| 0 6 | 0 321 71 9.2% |1,231 6.4% June 1 27| 2 8 | 0 321 68 -4.2% |1,194 6.4% July 1 28| 0 8 | -2 319 66 -2.9% |1,175 6.3% Aug. 2 31| 0 8 | -12 307 75 13.6% |1,184 6.3% Sep. 2 33| 0 8 | 1 308 76 1.3% |1,189 6.2% g) Government Grants ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (i) Industry Canada (Community Access Program) Jean Wilmot (aa145) and Ken McKinlay will get involved to move this project along to the next step. It appears that there are two opportunities from CAP. In the short term Industry Canada wishes to hire someone to produce an Urban CAP roll out strategy document (basically, a how-to covering both technical and administrative issues). NCF has been invited to submit a proposal to write this report. In the longer term the opportunity is not only much bigger, but is much potentially considerably stronger. Partnerships with organizations such as the City of Ottawa and the City of Nepean, will need to be firmed up but both municipalities are interested in getting public access sites into their community buildings and CAP has funding available to do exactly that. Our role in this partnership will be as a facilitator and an ISP. The partners will have to look after their own site issues, maintenance and communications costs etc. We will operate the servers (donated) and gain members. Being on the steering committee from day one, gives us an opportunity to ensure that things are set up not only be pro-NCF, but in a way that makes it easiest for these new users to use NCF rather than any other ISP for mail news etc. NCF itself is unlikely to make the proposal, but we can act as facilitator, and have a hand in choosing the players and in drafting the proposal. The proposal itself, would be submitted on behalf of a joint venture between the several organizations who have community buildings, fit for use as public access sites. (ii) Industry Canada (VolNet) As we heard last month, from Justine Akman, Industry Canada's will give away computers to voluntary sector organizations. While NCF could be the delivery agency for Ottawa, acting in this capacity might compromise our ability to carry out our core business. Furthermore, there is a risk that we would come to rely on the steady income from Volnet throughout the project period and find ourselves weakened and unable to sustain ourselves at the end of the contract. There is a significant opportunity for NCF in this, but not necessarily from the grant money. Our gain will be greatest if we can position ourselves in a way so that we gain membership without deviating from our principal focus. To take this a step closer, I have initiated dialogue with The Volunteer Centre of Ottawa-Carleton. The Volunteer Centre could be the actual delivery agency, but we would partner with them. They have an excellent reputation within the voluntary sector and see this as a way to expand their ability to service the various agencies which they represent. What they don't have is the technology savvy. That's where we come in. We bring to the table the technology savvy and the ability to provide ISP services to the +/- 200 per year voluntary sector organizations who will be the recipients of the computers and training. h) Public Relations Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FreeNews - monthly is available in text format, at "go freenews" and on the web at: http://www.ncf.ca/ncf/freenews/. This is the inaugural issue for our new editor, John Angus (an321) Ads were run in both Monitor Magazine and Ottawa Computes. These ads promoted the FreeNet Online Auction. i) Funding Administrivia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The on-line list of donor files was updated to reflect all October donations. Thank You letters were sent to all donors. j) Outreach ~~~~~~~~ Seniors Internet Program: Regular weekly sessions continue at both the Alex Dayton Seniors Activity Centre and The Abbotsford Centre. A similar program will start at The Good Companions Centre at the beginning of January. Corel Corporation has donated WordPerfect Suite8 for the three donated computers which we have located in these centres. k) Top Five Priorities - ED ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Recruitment / orientation of Sysadmin (2) Implement new donation policy (3) 1999 Budget & Strategy (4) Complete: go donate, go renew & paper registration (5) Industry Canada Programs: - Urban CAP - Volnet 2. Member Services and Future Initiatives ========================================== a) Scotia Bank - Donation collections ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ An arrangement has been finalized with the Bank of Nova Scotia, Now, Donations to the National Capital FreeNet can now be dropped of at any Scotia Bank branch in the region. Members will put their donation in an envelope and address it to: Bank of Nova Scotia, Carleton University Branch, transit number 00406 Attention: FreeNet. Scotia Bank in turn, will inform us that a package is waiting and we will be able to pick it up and process it in the usual fashion. b) FreeNews ~~~~~~~~ The November issue of FreeNews (Volume 2 Issue 11) was the first issue to be published by our new FreeNews editor John Angus (an321). The newsletter contains many new sections including, Pet Peeves, Newbie Complaints, I Luv NCF, You Said It, Random Journey, and The FreeNews Interview, etc. The new less formal format pokes fun at ourselves and takes a somewhat irreverent approach. Several new sections are somewhat risque including jokes and a controversial new column "NetSex: by Kiri". Reaction has been mixed with some members concerned particularly that in their opinion, these new more explicit sections should not be contained in this our official publication. Others however have applauded the new format, calling it "a breath of fresh air." Andrew D. Wright, the editor of the Chebucto Community Net newsletter, the Beacon, has asked for permission to reprint the NetSex article in their next issue. c) Auction ~~~~~~~ The annual NCF online auction began November 1st, 1998. About 300 items are for sale, with several interesting individual or personal items donated, a large assortment of hardware and software donated by Akran Networks and software donated by Corel Corporation and Microsoft Corporation. About 100 copies each of Microsoft Project 4.1, Microsoft FrontPage 1.1, and Microsoft Publisher 97 have been offered by the Ottawa Public Library. Proceeds from the sale of this software will be shared with OPL. As at the writing of this report, some 439 bids have been made for a total of $2,019.00 d) Renewal / Donation Strategy ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A revision to the system-generated renewal letter is nearly complete. The letter says in part: "From now on, we are asking all FreeNet members to share the costs of operations by making a minimum donation of at least $2 per month ($24 per year) or by contributing volunteer time. You are encouraged to donate more however, to help NCF improve and to help those in our community who are less able to contribute financially. Members who donate $48 or more per year will be entitled to a Personalized FreeNet Address for the year (for details, visit http://www.ncf.ca/ncf/pfa or type "go pfa"). Members who donate $100 or more will be entitled to a PFA and will be listed as a "Patron Member" (see the link on our hompage at http://www.ncf.ca) and will be encouraged to add this distinction to their signature strip on E-mail. Or you may support NCF with a non-cash contribution by volunteering. Volunteer opportunities include activities such as helping new members get online, or participating on a committee or project. In certain cases, past volunteer activity can also be recognized as your contribution. If you wish more details on this alternative, please visit http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ncf/volunteer or type "go volunteer". Some fine tuning is yet needed on the letter and the actual renewal procedure is yet to be finalized. The idea is however to make the process as easy and friendly as possible. e) CapitalFind ~~~~~~~~~~~ The new Renewal/Donation strategy proposes that members have new an opportunities to donate time in lieu of a cash donation. One of the new volunteer activities which will be offered is to "ADOPT A PAGE In CapitalFind, NCF's own guide to the Nation's Capital" CapitalFind will be an index to businesses and organizations in the National Capital region, sorted by category (much like the yellow pages). Listings will include organizations and businesses both with and without webpages. Those who do have homepages, will be hot-linked to the category page. Members will be encouraged to take on the creation and maintenance of category pages. Preliminary work has been started on the page and the prototype can be seen at http://www.ncf.ca/CapitalFind/. The team working on this project is led by Andre Ouellette (bf766) and includes Richard Bethell (cj434) and James Schofield (dj271). 3. System Administration ======================== a) Sysadmin Recruitment ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Andre Dalle (al178) joined the NCF staff on November 9, 1998 as System Administrator. Andre is a former Computer Science student at Ottawa University, where he completed his first year of Computer Science. He comes to us with additional experience gained while working on systems at E.B.Eddy and the C.S. Coop. Andre's first job will be to familiarize himself with our system and to begin to take over day-to-day management from our Volunteer Sysadmin team. b) Reconfiguring our telephone lines ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ All modem lines have been configured to permit most standard Internet activities, such as ftp, all type of file downloads, icq, telnet, https, etc. Such activities were formerly restricted to the 10 Internet sampler lines and the Extended Access lines. All lines are configured to permit one-hour sessions with a total allowance of two hours during peak periods (see also item c. below). In essence, this removes the time distinction for the Sampler and Express lines. (Text access on the Sampler lines is currently restricted to 5 minutes). The next step is to install new 28.8 Kbps modems and have Bell reconfigure the forwarding and hunt group rules so we will end up with the following arrangement: Old New Number Old name New name Speed Qty Qty ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~ 520-1135/30 Main Lines Main Lines 14.4 144 118 520-7835 Express Lines none* 14.4 15 1* 520-9013 Web Sampler High Speed lines 28.8/33.6 10 50 ~~~ ~~~ 169 169 * The Express designation will disappear and only one line will be left here, with forwarding to 520-1135/39 when busy. Mitel have recently expanded the number of lines which we can access for Extended Access to 44 lines. It may not be possible to expand beyond this point, but Mitel is exploring ways to increase to 48 lines (the number of modems in our Cisco AS5100 terminal server). c) Time limits enforcement PPP ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As noted in the member usage chart above, the number of sessions on our main modem pool has declined. At the same time, the number of busy signals has increased. The "atled" script that monitors the time limits, apparently has not worked properly for some time. Under some circumstances, PPP users are able to enjoy sessions longer than an hour. As the proportion of PPP users rises, and the number of "over-length" sessions increases, the pressure on the lines is greater. d) Top Five Priorities - Sysadmin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Orientation to NCF system - take over day-to-day management (2) Preparation of home and office monitoring equipment (3) Re-build rebuild damaged file system on Mitel gateway (4) Repair the "atled" script that monitors the time limits (5) Restore archiving -- *** Christopher L. Cope, Executive Director *** National Capital Freenet / Libertel de la Capitale nationale tel. (613) 520-2600 ext. 8024 -or- fax (613) 520-3524