Executive Director's Report
January 2004
===========================

February 13th, 2004
By John Selwyn
(execdir@NCF.ca) 

Membership is up by 100 to 8500, as compared to 8600 forecast in the budget.  
A slower membership growth is not surprising as we have been relatively
quite with respect to marketing in January.  The NCF is now entering a period
with more announcements, advertising and articles that should help to
stimulate interest in the NCF.

Donations for January were $20,554 as compared to expected donations of 
$25,000.  The donations for January cover the expenses for the period but
do not substantially help to build a financial buffer for the lean summer 
months.  

iDesk:
The NCF asked members for feedback on the iDesk during the last month.  
This both stimulated interest in the idesk and elicited many requests for 
expanding the range of software.  We are currently seeking additional 
software titles to increase the usefulness of the idesk to members.  I am 
convinced that if we had the right titles the iDesk could be a real success.

CAF:
We are currently seeing the benefits of the investment with the CAF 
infrastructure.  New features are being rolled out on a regular basis. One
such feature is the "auto-login".  A convience feature that allows members 
to by-pass the normal check-in.    

Discussion Groups:
The prototype for discussion groups has started being used for SpamFilter,
Problem Reports, Modems and development team.  A number of volunteer external
users have also begun experimenting with the prototype discussion groups.

French Pages:
French marketing pages have been installed.

Marketing:
Smart Capital launch provided the NCF with coverage in the Ottawa Citizen as
well as other mass media.  Our ads are scheduled to run in the Citizen Feb 14th
and in early March.  At the Smart Capital launch CFRA and le Droit expressed 
interest in feature articles/interviews during the next month.

SpamFilter has been adopted by over 500 members already electing to use the 
application to deal with spam.  The SpamFilter is now hardened sufficiently 
that we can confidently start to raise its profile, not only with members 
but also with the media.  As an innovative feature that is unique to the NCF
over the next few months I will be encouraging the media to look at SpamFilter.  

To date much of the communication at the NCF has been from the NCF office to 
members or from the members to NCF office.  Recent surveys of members have 
highlighted members' desires to communicate with each other. In the new year 
we will be working on ways to facilitate “many-to-many” interactions.  

We will be introducing a checkin feature to the NCF shortly.  I have heard 
encouragement from many members to introduce features that aid in member 
communications.  The NCF is much more than modems and many members don't know
just how much there is a the NCF.  Members are also encouraging the features that 
helps bring back the sense of community that was once so strong at the NCF.
I am hoping that members will view checking in to the NCF at the start of their
Internet time each day much like they would checkin to the tuck shop at a gym
or the front desk at a restaurant.  Check your announcements and then go about 
your business.  

Things are very busy,


Happy Valentines Day

John