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Everyone, I am including CCN-IP for reasons which will be evident below... The issue of CCN's precarious cash situation was raised at board meetings shortly after I came aboard. The response, after receiving varied financial statements, was "we're on target, doing fine". The fact that we are 'suddenly' at the brink of extinction worries me greatly. Comments / questions: - Have we initiated a renewal scheme for current IPs, and if so, what is the status? As has been pointed out before, at a minimum of $50/pop, possibly more if the existing IPs express interest in migrating to the more expensive membership plan, that could be a significant chunk of revenue. Besides, it's something we should be doing in any case! - I respectfully disagree with James' assessment of Krista's idea that we ask members for donations. It cannot "irreperably damage our public image", as we have no public image. If anything, the outreach effort can be undertaken in a way that does not reduce us to beggars; the first approach would be a promotional effort for CCN Plus. That could lead to renewals + upgrading to the more lucrative category without seeming desperate. Rather than "angering" our membership, I think you would find they would be more than pleasd that CCN is finally communicating with them (let's get that email newsletter out to every CCN user by tomorrow afternoon). - Additionally, can we PLEASE start doing some sort of advertising, whether it be paid, or by harangueing local columnists, reporters, etc. to cover us more thoroughly? At the very least, let's get some of our pamphlets (the ones with the URL, for goodness' sake) into public areas. Let's get something going with local computer stores (we DID discuss that, and someone <not me> said that a plan of action was coming...) - Six months from now we will not be broke again. IP and membership renewals are continually ongoing. It would be helpful if the office could give us a broad indication (bar chart Andrew!) of monthly account expiry estimates. That could help pinpoint on which months of the year we can expect fewer renewals (and thus a cash crunch) or more. It would also assist us in not panicking needlessly. - James, the discussion you and Andrew are having regarding getting more "poor folks" online. I hope you are sharing it with either the membership committee or the IP-committee, whichever is relevant. Please don't leave anyone out of the loop. - Gov't funding. A touchy one. I was unconfortable with Krista's (admittedly flippant) "plaster their logo everywhere" remark. If we are unable to stand on our own two feet, we will never be sustainable. I would appreciate a more useful provision of projections, etc. from the office and our accountant (hopefully working together ;-) as to the likelihood of CCN's demise or success. - James. Dialup most certainly is not dead. It can never be, without violating our mandate. The graphical service will only ever be a "poor man's" graphical dialup so long as it is limited to 33.6. No-one is optimising for slow modem connections anymore. I appreciate the ability to connect via Plus, but when I plug into my office LAN, I am sooooo happy at the speed. I don't know if it even makes sense to push for a 56k-enabled Chebucto, as even that avenue for dialup is becoming less lucrative with free 56K ISPs and more people splurging on cable modems at home. Finally, this has been a very long post. I would ask that we all trust one another to either remember what has been said before, or to not delete messages, thus enabling us to refrain from quoting the entire body of previous notes in our replies. Action items from above: 1/ invigorated IP renewal effort 2/ invigorated membership / user renewal effort 3/ email newsletter from CCN to members, pushing PLUS, renewals and donations 4/ Advertise / Public Image enhancement M. -- ---------------------------------------- Mark Rushton, Editor Community Support & Development Chebucto Community Network (CCN) <Mark@chebucto.ns.ca> <http://www.chebucto.ns.ca> ----------------------------------------
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