Cyberspace Communications finances for July 2003

Aug 1 04:27 UTC 2003

Here is the treasurer's report on Cyberspace Communications, Inc. finances 
through July 31st, 2003.

Beginning Balance     $4,427.06

Credits                 $552.00         Member contributions
                         $71.24         Proceeds from the 7th Grex auction
                         $20.00         Sale of two old Sun chassis
                          $1.57         Interest on our savings account
                   ------------
                        $644.81

Debits                   $80.41         Pumpkin Rent for August
                         $45.97         Electricity for July
                        $158.23         Phone Bill
                        $135.00         DSL July 15 through August 15
                          $3.11         Paypal fees (income = $66)
                         $58.00         Summer personal property taxes
                   ------------
                        $480.72

Ending Balance        $4,591.15

Our current balance breaks down as follows:

$4,354.61               General Fund
  $153.99               Silly Hat Fund
   $60.00               Spare Parts Fund
   $22.55               Infrastructure Fund

The money is distributed like this:

$1,228.66   Checking account
$3,362.49   Savings account earning approximately 0.75% interest annually

We had two new members in July (gorg and lhbunkie).  We are currently 
at 80 members, 74 of whom are paid through at least August 15th.  (The 
others expired recently and are in a grace period.)

Notes:

- Grex pays personal property taxes on the equipment it owns.  This 
year the taxes come to around $80.  Some gets paid in the winter, but 
the majority gets paid in the summer.

Thanks to everyone who contributed in July:

bookie, charcat, cmcgee, fuzzball, gelinas, gorg, jmm, kip, lhbunkie, 
mdw, noknown, phines, remmers, and wh.

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 33:

Aug 5 20:46 UTC 2003

Yeah, that does suck.  What about a CD for some of the money?

response 4 of 33:

Aug 5 23:23 UTC 2003

Hmm; how about a money market account, or investing some of it in a mutual
fund, if the front end load isn't too much?

response 6 of 33:

Aug 6 01:53 UTC 2003

Based on what i've seen of interest rates these days, grex could get a
lot more money by renting you out as minimum-wage checkbook balancer for
the hours that you'd spend searching for a few more basis points of yield
on our modest savings.

In other words, you're already doing plenty for grex, and this it ain't
worth your time to bother with.

response 8 of 33:

Aug 6 02:45 UTC 2003

Ditto. 

response 10 of 33:

Aug 6 03:16 UTC 2003

I don't think it's appropriate either, for what this worth.

response 12 of 33:

Aug 6 11:52 UTC 2003

Re: #9
It's your job to research & recommend on such things *as appropriate to
grex's situation*.  If someone gives grex $10 million, it would then be
appropriate to consider risk-vs.-reward for fractions of a percent of
interest & such trivia.  Anyone got $10 million to let us get into this
cool subject further?  Please?

response 14 of 33:

Aug 6 15:48 UTC 2003

I just didn't want it to sound like I was dismissing cross's suggestion out
of hand.

Re #11: I don't remember the membership voting on savings accounts.  I think
the board must have voted to authorize the savings account, but I don't
remember what the motion said.

response 16 of 33:

Aug 8 22:25 UTC 2003

I expect Mark to decide what's worth Mark's time.  Should Mark place 
his time at my disposal, he can be sure of getting some very different 
decisions about how he is to spend it, but I don't advise him to do 
that.

Checking out bank accounts sure isn't worth *my* time, and won't be 
worth Mark's time when I take charge of his life.

response 18 of 33:

Aug 9 02:02 UTC 2003

(is aruba up for auction?  I bid five dollars!)

response 20 of 33:

Aug 9 14:44 UTC 2003

Woo hoo!  Err, to do what?

response 22 of 33:

Aug 9 14:54 UTC 2003

$15.00

response 24 of 33:

Aug 9 18:31 UTC 2003

Aha!  Hah ha ha.  Err, hmm.