Cyberspace Communications finances for November 2002

Dec 4 00:23 UTC 2002

Here is the treasurer's report on Cyberspace Communications, Inc. finances 
through November 30th, 2002.

Beginning Balance     $5,135.23

Credits                 $564.00         Member contributions
                          $2.97         Interest on our savings account
                         $20.37         Miscellaneous donations
                   ------------
                        $587.34

Debits                   $76.58         Pumpkin Rent for December
                         $45.97         Electricity for November
                        $175.85         Phone Bill
                        $135.00         DSL November 15 through December 15
                          $5.50         Paypal fees (income = $138)
                         $42.72         Winter personal property taxes
                   ------------
                        $481.62

Ending Balance        $5,240.95

Our current balance breaks down as follows:

$4,003.96               General Fund
  $152.99               Silly Hat Fund
   $60.00               Spare Parts Fund
$1,024.00               Infrastructure Fund

The money is distributed like this:

  $897.25   Checking account
$4,343.70   Savings account earning approximately 1.30% interest annually

We had three new members (ah3133, mynxcat, and falcon76) and one returning 
member (keesan) in November.  We are currently at 83 members, 78 of whom 
are paid through at least December 15th.  (The others expired recently and 
are in a grace period.)

Notes:

- Grex is in the black again this month!  And we added 4 people to the 
membership rolls, which is the most in quite a few months.

- I called Ameritech to drop a phone line on October 4th, but the order 
was mysteriously cancelled.  I called back and had someone reinstate the 
drop order, and backdate it to October 4th.  So this month's report 
doesn't show a drop in the phone bill, but next month's will, if all goes 
well at Ameritech.

- Grex pays personal property taxes to the City of Ann Arbor on all the 
equipment it owns.  The bill comes in two parts, one in the summer and one 
in the winter.  For some reason the summer taxes are about twice as much 
as the winter taxes.

Thanks to everyone who contributed in November:

ah3133, antoniob, arabella, bhelliom, dalinn, dang, dpfitzen, falcon76, 
flem, glenda, gregory, keesan, mynxcat, rcurl, robh, steve, and suntx.

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 12:

Dec 5 20:29 UTC 2002

BTW the interest rate on our savings account has dropped again, to .86%. 
Pretty miserable, if you ask me.  "If you loan me $100 for a year, I'll pay
you 86 cents!"  I don't really have time right now to do a thorough survey
of local banks to see what they're paying; anyone have a data point on
savings accounts?

response 4 of 12:

Dec 5 20:50 UTC 2002

TCF doesn't have any interest bearing accounts that are useful to us.  Our
checking account is at TCF, our savings account is at Bank of Ann Arbor.

response 6 of 12:

Dec 6 02:46 UTC 2002

My son's savings account brings in 0.5% interest.  (I supplement this 
with periodic 20% payouts to promote saving.)

One of the banks was recently advertising cash for non-profits, with 
more cash if members opened accounts there, too.  I heard about it on a 
local radio station.  I don't remember what bank it was, though, and 
don't know if it would be worth checking out for Grex.

response 8 of 12:

Dec 7 20:42 UTC 2002

Don't have much info on bank accounts, but if I ever get down the conference
list to Agora, I'm going to start a "Best ISP Deals" item.  Then freeze it
right away.  I'll add to it when people send information on better deals.

A better alternative to messages, might be two items in a row.

response 10 of 12:

Dec 14 04:42 UTC 2002

(Businesses cannot earn interest on their checking accounts.  The Sailing Club
is currently using the UM Credit Union for its accounts; we moved from
MNB/Standard Federal this summer.)

response 12 of 12:

Dec 18 16:03 UTC 2002

I got the phone bill yesterday, and we are indeed now down to 7 lines.  We
were credited with a refund back to 10/4 on the line we dropped.  Our new
phone bill will be approximately $157.28/month.