Coordinator's Report May 2006

General News

April seemed to be a busy month. Lucky for me, I was away for three weeks of it! My holiday featured a quick road trip to Adelaide. I caught up with ITShare (friendly folks) and picked up 10 lovely laptops.

We were contacted about doing an interview for community radio program called Tektime (see www.tektime.com.au) on the 8th of July. Listen in on 97.1FM (3MDR).

We formed a relationship with a new recycler, it got off too a shaky start when we quoted the wrong weights for hard drives and motherboards. Our first lot of plastic recycling was also picked up.

I submitted a grant application to Fosters for the purpose of funding internet access network sites in locations such as public housing (high - medium density).

While not really in April, I recently gave a presentation to the May meeting of the Linux Users of Victoria. The presentation covered our achievments in 2005 and our plans for the year and beyond.

Special mention and thanks to Jan for managing the front desk on Friday and Saturday. Jan has been doing a wonderful job. :)

Computers Out

March =  34; 3 sold in the shop, One on loan to LUV as per the Ballarat installfest activity. 
April = 26; 3 sold in the shop. One computer went to the Hampton Park Senior Citizens Centre. It will be used for training individual recipients. We could approach Hampton Park about a thin client network setup too.  

May (TD) = 4

Year to Date: 121 + 15 shop computers = 136

Waiting List

There are around 42 people waiting for a computer. The average wait for a computer is 6 weeks. 21 people are booked into training or are scheduled to pick up their computers.  13 applications require follow up. 

A lot of people are in the follow up stage because they lack transport or have little understanding of English. This also means computers hang around for a while (we've all seen the monitors in the hallway).

Our admin team (Tony, Jan, myself) are looking into ways of preventing or at least minimising this.  Jan has also been in touch with the Assylum Seekers Resource Centre to discuss options for working with their clients.

Donations

We received some good donations over the past month including 20 odd computers from Republique in South Yarra and 10 really nice laptops from ITShare. A donation of computers from Melbourne Uni also came in. Con donated 20 modems from his work.

We received our first ever flat screen and G4 imac from an individual donor (much thanks). Many other donations were also received from individuals.

Projects

Projects currently active include:

• CBV Distro (main build)
• CBV Lean (light build)
• Database Project
• CD Project
• Laptop Project

The knowledge base project (new) is now on hold. Many thanks to Royce for his contributions to date.

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 WFD project is running well although attendance is quite low. We have 21/23 people on the project but only see anywhere from 4-10 people attending on any one day. We had to remove one of the participants due to an incident of theft. We have a monitoring visit scheduled for May 11th.

Despite the low attendance, WFD participants have been busy helping with software builds, recycling, data entry, testing printers, modems and other devices.  

Documentation on how to install our distro over the network was written. Revisions to other documents have also taken place. The "where things go" document is on hold (it might be better if we defer this task to a volunteer). A questions and answers workshop day was also held. Notes from this will aid future WFD participants (still to be written).

New Volunteers

A few new volunteers have joined us since my last monthly report. Big welcome to Alistair, Jessica, and Max. :) Alistair has joined to help with advanced technical projects, distro testing and user support (among other things), Jessica is joining to help with documentation (initially) and Max will be helping with device testing, other projects and training room preparation.

Finances

Looking healthy. The BAS and super contributions for the January-March 06 quarter were remitted.  We paid the ATO $3429 due to WFD funding received during the period.

February Income = $2774.90 + 38.50 ING interest
March Income = $4041.16 + 139.56 ING interest (Total: $4180.72)
April Income = $2460.50 + 163.72 ING interest (Total: $2624.22)

March was a great month!

PS: Don't get too excited, we still need to work out our after costs income (dvd's, printers, burners, contractor fees). I estimate this runs at around $300 per month.

Account Balances as at 08/05/06
ING = $30,135.19
WestPac = $1696.95

Total: $31,832.14

Outstanding Accounts:

WFD Final project payment (due at end of August): ~ $7590
E-waste Invoices: $330
Linux Australia Grant: $1650

Total = $9570

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 ammendment to the report.

-- Kylie -- May 8th, 2006