Grex Oldcoop Conference

Item 65: Cyberspace Communications finances for 2003

Entered by aruba on Thu Jan 1 21:45:14 2004:

This is a special year-end report on Grex's finances for 2003.

Beginning Balance     $5,166.82

           Average        Total

Credits    $419.75    $5,037.00     Membership dues
            $87.32    $1,047.85     Donations to the Infrastructure Fund
            $48.97      $587.60     Proceeds from the Grex auction
            $42.28      $507.32     Miscellaneous donations
             $5.83       $70.00     Sales: old hardware, CafePress, handbooks
             $3.33       $40.00     Donation for ad in the AA News
             $1.97       $23.69     Interest
           -------    ---------
           $609.46    $7,313.46

Debits     $191.66    $2,299.86     NextGrex hardware
           $150.97    $1,811.58     Phone bills
           $135.00    $1,620.00     DSL line
            $79.13      $949.60     Rent
            $45.97      $551.64     Electricity
            $43.75      $525.00     Liability Insurance for the Pumpkin
             $8.28       $99.30     Paypal fees (averge income = $192.25)
             $6.99       $83.83     Taxes paid
             $3.33       $40.00     Advertising
             $3.17       $38.00     Rental of P.O. Box
             $2.47       $29.66     Fees to maintain our domain names
             $1.62       $19.38     Shipping
             $0.83       $10.00     Corporation fees
             $0.56        $6.73     Miscellaeous expenses
             $0.42        $5.00     Bank service charges
           -------    ---------
           $674.13    $8,089.58

Ending balance:       $4,390.70

We added 28 people to the membership rolls in 2003:

barnacle, cross, dcat, devnull, fhoda, frisk, garrigan, glenda, gorg,
hjlawre, jlamb, jokach, jp2, kd3hw, kip, lhbunkie, lkogan, markag,
mbusse, mofo27, null, ranun, shizbu, siamiam, slynne, steve, tod, and
vlt.  Of those, 20 were still members at the end of the year.

At the end of 2002 we had 80 paid-up members.  At the end of 2003
we had 81 paid-up members.  We had an average of 80 paid up members
during the year.
17 responses total.
#1 of 17 by aruba on Thu Jan 1 22:00:01 2004:

So Grex's bank balance dropped by $776.12 during 2003.  However, it was an
unusual year in that we bought NextGrex, and used money that was donated
earlier.  The general fund actually increased by $214.33.

#2 of 17 by cross on Thu Jan 1 22:21:01 2004:

Wow; so grex pays, on average, $303.85 to live in the pumpkin per month.
How much is colocation, again?

#3 of 17 by naftee on Thu Jan 1 23:04:29 2004:

And almost $2000 in phone costs.

#4 of 17 by cross on Fri Jan 2 00:42:30 2004:

That's over the whole year, but yeah.  I wasn't counting that because I'm
not sure one could get away from it even if one uses a colo facility.

#5 of 17 by flem on Fri Jan 2 19:06:04 2004:

Interesting.  It appears that finances aren't quite as badly off as I
had thought.  We appear to be covering "normal" costs, at least.  Of
course, there will always continue to be abnormal costs, so enthusiasm
is best in moderation -- but I'm somewhat encouraged.  

Thanks for the report, Mark.

#6 of 17 by aruba on Fri Jan 2 20:27:04 2004:

I had the same reaction as Greg, looking at the numbers.  Compare the above
with the report from 2002, which is in ~aruba/reports/2002.txt .

#7 of 17 by gull on Sat Jan 3 16:26:05 2004:

I think there's more to the colocation issue than price.  Given how hard
it is to get staff to work on the system *now*, if we make them jump
through extra hoops to get physical access it may be even harder to get
anything done.

#8 of 17 by mary on Sat Jan 3 17:11:57 2004:

Physical access wasn't the problem.  There were colo facilities within
blocks of the pumpkin that offered 24/7 access.  The problem was the
amount of rack space we'd need. That's what pushed the price up there,
out of our reach. 

Anyhow, before the end of January we'll need to give our current
landlord notice of our intent to renew at the pumpkin for another
year.  So we have lots and lots of time to consider colo starting
June 2005.

#9 of 17 by janc on Sat Jan 3 20:50:53 2004:

I think the plan for locating in library space still holds promise.
There were some access issues though.

#10 of 17 by cross on Sun Jan 4 00:42:50 2004:

The problem with the space issue was that Mary went to wildly varying
extremes in explaining to the colo people about how much space we
really need.  It went from 1U to half a rack.  I don't fault her for
this; it's not like most people walk around having memorized the amount
of space in a single rack unit.  But, the reality was that half a rack
was prohibitively expensive while in reality grex only needs a few (>1)
units of space.

#11 of 17 by gull on Sun Jan 4 00:51:31 2004:

We'd need to mount the computer, terminal server, modems, and the tape 
drive.  (Unless we do backups over the network, but in that case we need 
somewhere else to put the tape drive anyway.)

#12 of 17 by mary on Sun Jan 4 04:25:58 2004:

I asked Marcus what we'd need. I wasn't guessing.
Do you disagree with his estimate, Dan?

#13 of 17 by cross on Sun Jan 4 20:38:45 2004:

Yes, I disagree completely with his estimate.  I don't think we need more
than 3U of space.

#14 of 17 by mary on Sun Jan 4 21:48:52 2004:

What we'd get with 4u of space and how much it would cost Grex
is listed in coop #13, response #98.

But the very first thing we'd need to do is for staff to agree
we could fit into 4u.

#15 of 17 by janc on Mon Jan 5 16:16:10 2004:

Dan is assuming that we get a different computer.  Marcus wasn't.

#16 of 17 by cross on Mon Jan 5 18:44:31 2004:

No, I'm assuming we get a different case for the computer we have now.

#17 of 17 by jesuit on Wed May 17 02:14:32 2006:

TROGG IS DAVID BLAINE

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