Coordinator's Report September 2005
_General News_
The past couple of months have been very busy!
Con delivered the second of the Darebin Aged Housing Networks, this time in Holmes St. Con has been providing basic skills and internet training to the residents who will use and manage the network. Nice work Con and nice work from the WFD project!
The distro play and test day went well. We got some good feedback even though we only had a small number turn up. Thanks to our groovy tech team for helping with setup and questions on the day.
We had an open day event for Software Freedom Day. It was a successful event even if we did get low numbers. Big thanks to all those folk who helped both in the lead up and on the day.
I attended a meeting at the Footscray Library around access to technology in the Maribrynong region of Melbourne. People from a range of organisations in the region attended the meeting. Some were working on projects aimed to address digital divide issues (InfoXChange, Neighbourhood Renewal Project, WCIG, Computerbank), and others were looking to find better ways of managing IT infrastructure and training issues with limited resources (Library Services, Neighbourhood Houses and Community Centres).
The computers finally arrived in Ecuador. :) I am yet to hear any reports from the people who will use them. I'm very keen to find out what they think of the Linux setup we have provided. If others are interested in following the Ecuador project, check out the http://www.nabuur.com website.
Lastly, big pat on the back for everyone who has contributed over the last couple of months. Rocking good work!
_Computers Out_
August = 31, Darebin Aged Housing (Holmes St) and Community Media Services received networks.
September = 31, Everlived Inc received computers from us.
Shop computers sold = 5
YTD: ~ 296!
_Waiting List_
There is about a one-two month wait for stand alone computers. The wait for a network is around one-two months (this is related to resourcing / training issues).
_Donations_
We received some great donations over the past few months, many of them being PIII class. Donations were received from GHD (again), Information Potential, and Wizards Computers. There were also many donations from individuals.
_Projects_
Projects currently active include:
CBV Distro (main build) CBV Lean (light build) CBV Pure Debian (a pure Debian build of the CBV Distro) CBV Distro Spanish implementation Thin Clients Distro Database Project CD Project
_WFD Project_
Our WFD project rolled over for another 6 months. The current project will end in February. We will not know if this project will roll over again, and with the same numbers (ie 20 participants), until around November.
We do not have a full project at the moment as there have been low numbers of referrals to WFD projects over the past couple of months.
Attendance on the current project has been quite low over the past month due to people having casual work or not attending. Despite this we are still getting fantastic outcomes with the people who do attend.
_New Volunteers and Members_
We welcome Barry Klein as a new member. Barry has been volunteering at Computerbank for over a year, helping out with software projects and lead training.
We will be running a volunteer information session on Saturday October 8th where we are expecting around 7 new volunteers to join up.
_Finances_
August Income (non WFD) = 2647.45 September Income (non WFD) = 1931.80
_Meetings and Events_
Volunteer Information day on October 8th from 2-4pm and don't forget the AGM on the 15th of October starting at 11am. After the meeting we'll have a light lunch. Hope to see many folks there.
_Last Thing_
Sorry if I have forgotten to mention something, if that's the case, let me know what it is, and I can add an amendment to the report.
Cheers,
Kylie
