Coordinator's Report November 2005

_General News_

Lots to report for this period, so much has happened that it is hard to
know where to begin.

Our wonderful Thursday front desk volunteer, Jodie, has gone on holidays
for the long term. It is not known if Jodie will be back, we already we
miss her great work on Thursdays and have our fingers crossed.

Another person to leave us, although not permanently, is Con. Con got a
new job working full time in IT, so has resigned from his position in
the WFD program. He'll also take a back seat for a little while and will
not be so active as a volunteer. We are really going to miss having Con
around, a great loss for us. A nice outcome for Con...full time
employment in IT doing Linux work. We wish you all the best.

Well wishes also get extended to our treasurer, Norm. Norm is very ill
at the moment and it is not yet known when he will be back on deck. Get
well soon Norm!

In this period we also had our AGM, this went down without a hitch and
was over in 20 minutes.

I did a talk, "Addressing the Social and Environmental Issues of
Technology," for the Annual Mensa conference. About 60 people attended,
the talk was well received and I had many people asking me interesting
questions afterwards.

Probably lots more to report, but out of time!

_Computers Out_

September = 36,  Groups to receive computers were Darebin and Everlived
Inc. From this 2 shop boxes were sold.

October = 42, No groups. From this 4 shop boxes were sold.

November = 18 to date, Friends of Kolkata received a laptop and
Community Media Services received an update to their network.

_Waiting List_

There are around 23 people waiting for a computer. Given the end year
and training break in January, the wait list will be around two months.
The wait for a network is around one-two months.

_Donations_

We received some good donations over the past few months, many of them
being PIII class.

United Group
Gillette
Teletech
Ithaca SCM
NHA Architecture
Shedden Uhde
GHD
Wizard Computers

Plus many donations from individuals.

_Projects_

Projects currently active include:

CBV Distro (main build)
CBV Lean (light build)
CBV Pure User Distro (a straight Debian build of CBV Distro)
Database Project
CD Project
Laptop Project

It'd be great if folk working on these projects, could write a summary
of where things are at (if they have not done so already).

_WFD Project_

The monitoring visit by DEWR in October went very well. The DEWR
contract manager was quite impressed with our work and project and had
no comments or feedback to give.

Numbers in the WFD project have picked up, we are nearly running with a
full complement, although not all participants are turning up.

WFD participants have been busy helping with software builds, recycling,
database entries, testing printers and other devices. They have also
contributed some documentation, for eg, how to play a DVD movie.

_New Volunteers_

A couple of new volunteers this time around. Hi to Warren (forgot to say
hi in last months report), David S, Sravan, and Scott. :)

_Finances_

September Income (non WFD) = $1753.59
October Income (non WFD) = $2649.41
November Income (non WFD) = $1196.39 TD

_Last Thing_

Sorry if I have forgotten to mention something, if that's the case, let
me know what it is, and I can add an amendment to the report.


Cheers,

Kylie