Cyberspace Communications finances for February 2001

Mar 1 03:27 UTC 2001

Here is the treasurer's report on Cyberspace Communications, Inc. finances
through February 28th, 2001.

Beginning Balance     $3,554.56

Credits                 $888.00         Member contributions
                        $132.00         Miscellaneous donations
                          $1.00         Handbook sales
                   ------------
                      $1,021.00

Debits                   $69.46         Pumpkin Rent for March
                         $54.34         Electricity for February
                        $297.06         Phone Bill
                         $35.00         CardService fee for January
                          $6.64         PayPal discounts (income = $276)
                         $70.00         Renewal of grex.org for 2 years
                          $1.00         Renewal of our sales tax license
                   ------------
                        $533.50

Ending Balance        $4,042.06

Our current balance breaks down as follows:

$3,842.20               General Fund
  $139.86               Silly Hat Fund
   $60.00               Spare Parts Fund

There was no activity in the Grex store this month, so the balances remain:

                         Cash                                    Stock
                     ---------                                ---------
                       ($6.60)                                 $280.20

We had 3 new members (pakl, mbroggy, and katie) and 2 returning members 
(polygon and chanur) in February.  We are currently at 94 members, 86 of 
whom are paid through at least March 15th.  (The others expired recently and 
are in a grace period.)

Notes:

- I have made 4 calls to Ameritech this month to try to get our ISDN lines 
dropped.  Apparently there are plenty of people there who can deal with ISDN 
and plenty who can deal with Centrex, but only 2 who know how to deal with 
both.  Finally, today, they told me that our order is in and our lines due 
to be dropped March 1st.  They should backdate the billing to September 
28th, when Greg first called them.  So next month there may be a big cut in 
the normal phone bill amount.

- I called Voyager to get them to send us a bill.  They don't know why we 
haven't been billed before now, but we should get something around March 
15th.  Our current balance is $1,417.54, which includes $359 for 
installation and service from August 2nd to the present.  (That date agrees 
with the date when scott reported that the Covad installer came to the 
Pumpkin.  We switched over to DSL on August 30th.)  That works out to about 
$142/month, in line with our contract, which says $135/month plus telco fees 
like 911 and USF.  They promised to send an itemized bill, so I can work out 
exactly what we're being charged for.

- We still have our sales tax license, even though we don't have to charge 
sales tax since we became 501(c)3.  It would probably be more trouble to get 
rid of it than to fill out the form each year and pay $1.

- I sent mail to everyone who donated $75 or more in 2000, asking if they 
want paper receipts for tax purposes.  I've heard from all but one, and sent 
receipts to everyone who wanted one.

- A summary of the credit card experiment is in coop item 232.

- Finally, Grex's finances do look better now than they did at the beginning 
of the month, largely because I harassed people mercilessly, and a lot of 
overdue members renewed their memberships.  However we're still down about 
$1,375 from where we were at this time last year, and if you take into 
account the debt to Voyager and the pending credit from Ameritech, then we 
are about $2,340 down from this time last year.

- On my list of things to do soon:
    - Print some handbooks and send them to 6 people who are waiting for 
      them.
    - Clean up member.html and memfaq.html to better explain how to send 
      money to Grex via PayPal.
    - Decide if we have enough money to make it worth opening a money market
      account.
    - Take the signed signature card and form to the bank, so that I can 
      begin signing checks.

Thanks to everyone who contributed in February:

bmoran, bruin, chanur, coyote, davel, dpfitzen, falcon1, i, janc, katie, 
krj, mitton, mudlark, n8nxf, n8rxs, quail, raheim, robh, russ, tomaso, and 
the Grexwalkers.

Thanks everyone!

If you or your institution would like to become a member of Grex, it only
costs $6/month or $60/year.  Send money to:

Cyberspace Communications
P. O. Box 4432
Ann Arbor, MI 48106-4432

If you pay by cash or money order, please include a photocopy of some form of 
ID.  I can't add you to the rolls without ID.  (If you pay with a personal 
check that has your name pre-printed on it, we consider that a good enough 
ID.)  Type !support or see http://www.cyberspace.org/member.html for more 
info.

response 2 of 13:

Mar 1 15:09 UTC 2001

Well, once a week.  I'm glad it comes across as gentle.

response 4 of 13:

Mar 2 02:31 UTC 2001

It does below a certain point, IIRC, because the sale of those items is a 
means of fundraising rather than a commercial endeavor.  I don't remember 
what that point is.

response 6 of 13:

Mar 2 14:39 UTC 2001

That's a per-year limit, right?

response 8 of 13:

Mar 14 23:20 UTC 2001

Good news: I got the phone bill today, and our ISDN lines have indeed been
dropped, effective 9/29/2000.  Our refund amount is $452.18.  Our current
monthly phone bill is now $204.00, though that will go down after we drop
two more lines.  (I missed the business hours to do that today.  I will call
in the morning.)

response 10 of 13:

Mar 23 16:49 UTC 2001

I finally got the bill from core.com (our ISP - they apparently bought out
voyager.net).  After telling me on the phone that the bill would be $1400,
the one they actually sent is for only $945.  So it looks like we caught a
break.  They didn't charge us for installation, for the period from 8/2 to
9/15, or for any of the telco fees vaguely alluded to in our contract.

response 12 of 13:

Mar 24 01:09 UTC 2001

If I remember correctly (and I may not, it's friday and it's been a long 
week), we actually made about $100 on the credit card fiasco. (not 
including the fees we're continuing to pay)