General Manager's Report to the Board of Twin Cities Free-Net

membership processing

• Secured a number of volunteers to handle the processing of renewal forms on an irregular. Mike Huck has committed to coming to the office every week at the same time to do not only renewals but also registrations. Thanks to his efforts, all such forms are now being processed in less than a week.
• Worked through the "nightmare pile" of forms that had not been processed for one reason or another, many of them for more than a year.
• Helped Lou Miranda to identify bugs in the automated database by running headlong into them.
• The database should print a large number of renewal notices on approximately July 6, and I will do my best to recruit a large number of volunteers to stuff envelopes. Any envelopes not stuffed during sessions on the nights of the 6th through 9th will be brought to the volunteer gathering on July 11.
• Succeeded in filling the one rail-equipped filing cabinet drawer with registration forms sorted by last initial, working with volunteer Dave Anderson. Newly purchased rails for two other drawers should facilitate further filing.
• Will soon produce full documentation of the registration and renewal processes to ease volunteer training.
• John Lindgren is planning to create a Web interface to parts of the database which will allow volunteers to check user information without coming into the office.

system administration intern

• Tony Stubblebine has been briefed on the system administration tasks that need to be worked on. Since we both work from home whenever possible and live in different cities, we don't see each other much! (Tony will give his own report to the board.)

organizational billing

• Rory McManus has created a program to automatically bill organizations each month that they exceed their disk quotas. However, the details of how this will work in conjunction with Nolan's database, which generates yearly bills automatically. I'll meet with both of them soon.
• Bills have been sent during Nolan's absence.

publicity, training, teaching

• Revised the Free-Net's training materials which are sent along with the registration confirmation form to new members.
• Prepared a brochure to introduce potential members to the Free-Net's mission and services. Following board approval, this will be copied and distributed with sponsorship requests, to individuals and organizations requesting information, and to public terminals.
• Met with teaching volunteers to sketch out plans for sessions to teach groups of new users to use the Free-Net. Also met with Sandra Paddock of NPCR and will sit in on one or more of her training sessions.
• TCFN will be listed in the next printed edition of the Yellow Pages and is already listed in the online edition under the heading, "Computers - Bulletin Boards & Online Services."

AFCN Conference

I will be attending the first annual conference of the Association For Community Networking, July 16-18. My total expenses for the trip, including registration, travel, and lodging, come to just over $500. I would appreciate any compensation the board is able to provide.