Cyberspace Communications finances for October 2004

Oct 31 15:00 UTC 2004

Here is the treasurer's report on Cyberspace Communications, Inc. finances 
through October 31st, 2004.

Beginning Balance     $3,282.01

Credits                 $456.00         Member contributions
                         $40.00         Miscellaneous donations
                          $2.00         Sale of a Grex handbook
                          $1.30         Interest on our savings account
                   ------------
                        $499.30

Debits                   $84.43         Pumpkin Rent for November
                         $61.02         Electricity for October
                         $90.73         Phone Bill
                        $135.00         DSL October 15 through November 15
                          $6.63         Paypal fees (income = $152)
                   ------------
                        $377.81

Ending Balance        $3,403.50

Our current balance breaks down as follows:

$3,146.96               General Fund
  $173.99               Silly Hat Fund
   $60.00               Spare Parts Fund
   $22.55               Infrastructure Fund

The money is distributed like this:

  $518.46   Checking account
$2,885.04   Savings account earning 0.55% interest annually

We had no two new members in October (khamsun and cable).  We are currently 
at 71 members, 65 of whom are paid through at least November 15th.  (The 
others expired recently and are in a grace period.)

Notes:

It's good to be back in the black!  This was an especially good month for 
international contributions.  We have two new members from Norway and Puerto 
Rico, and we received a non-member donation from Israel.

Thanks to everyone who contributed in October:

cable, coyote, devnull, khamsun, liron, mnac, mooncat, rcurl, slynne, 
spar376, witling, and one person who would prefer to remain anonymous.

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:

Nov 19 15:28 UTC 2004

Aruba, what is the general trend of memberships since Grex was founded?
I think it has been downward recently, but would appreciate some hard
data.

response 4 of 13:

Nov 23 05:44 UTC 2004

Then membership is the lowest now that it has ever been?

response 6 of 13:

Nov 23 15:38 UTC 2004

Yet you won't stop demanding ID.

response 8 of 13:

Nov 24 00:26 UTC 2004

Re #6: The outrageous and unsupportable actions of Valerie and Jep,
followed by the shameless and unprincipled anti-restoration vote,
certainly did nothing to increase donations to Grex either. 

response 10 of 13:

Nov 26 07:55 UTC 2004

I have to admit, I agree with resp:8 's assertion, at least in my case. I
also would include the manner in which Cyklone began to express his opposition
as having an equal effect on *my* decision to stop supporting Grex financially.
In the beginning, I was appalled by the deletion of entire items from *any*
conference. Hell, I'm a relative neophyte in this world of Michigan BBS's
(acquiring my login in 2000) and even I knew a fairwitness wasn't supposed to
do that. My position at first surprised me, as they might perhaps surprise
cyklone. What had happened to the community as a whole affected me profoundly,
and caught me completely off guard. It began to get worse, as the attacks
became personal and more vicious, and large sections of the bbs were excised. I
had always admired what I perceived as the goals of the founders and membership
of Grex, but I lost that admiration very quickly. That saddens me to say.

I never could feel safe in expressing my opinions then, and I still have no
brilliant way to fix it, now. For this reason, I feel I should apologise for
posting even this, now. I sincerely wish the corpus Grex to find a way to heal
these open wounds, and take some decided action to immunise itself against
a recurrence. Listen to the different parts of yourselves. 

response 12 of 13:

Nov 28 07:49 UTC 2004

Poor micklepickle.