1998AnnualReport
It
has been an interesting 12 months for APANA. At the start of this period,
APANA was "bleeding at the edges". We had lost about 25% of our membership
in the previous year.
This
situation has now stabilised, with our current total membership being up
by 5 members on that at the last AGM.
It
is worth noting that this turn around of fortunes is due mostly to large
growth in smaller regions, and the addition of some new regions.
Large
regions are still suffering from declining membership. It's almost as if
there is a limit of around 200 members on the size of a region. Certainly
all of the large regions appear to have problems sustaining membership
levels in excess of 200 members.
On
the other end of the spectrum, the Perth region has seen phenomenal growth,
due mostly to the efforts of their RC and an aggressive advertising campaign.
Other
growth for APANA has been through the addition of two new regions, Northern
Wollongong and Hunter.
There
have been a couple of "flame-fests" over the past year, and it should be
made clear that the MC refuses to become involved in these.
Finally,
in
spite of the apparent stability in the overall level of membership, the
large regions (Melbourne, Sydney and ACT) still have a very real problem
with declining membership, and this must be addressed by their respective
Regional Committees.
The
last twelve months have been rather interesting times for APANA.The
highlights of the year were the establishment of two new regions Hunter
and Northern Wollongong and gaining an ARBN, this being obtained in December.Now
APANA is a legal entity in all states and territories within the Commonwealth
of Australia.It stills remains
incorporated in the State of Victoria.
Membership:
|
1997
|
1998
|
Change
|
Percentage
of membership
|
|
|
ACT
|
192
|
164
|
-28
|
16.82%
|
|
Brisbane
|
54
|
66
|
+12
|
6.77%
|
|
Hobart*
|
3
|
-
|
-3
|
0.00%
|
|
Hunter#
|
-
|
25
|
+25
|
2.56%
|
|
Melbourne
|
273
|
235
|
-38
|
24.10%
|
|
Northern
Wollongong^
|
-
|
10
|
+10
|
1.03%
|
|
Perth
|
71
|
163
|
+92
|
16.72%
|
|
South
Australia
|
119
|
135
|
+16
|
13.85%
|
|
258
|
177
|
-81
|
18.15%
|
|
|
TOTAL
|
970
|
975
|
+5
|
100.00%
|
#
The Hunter Region was formally established at the MC meeting 19 August
1997.
^
The Northern Wollongong Region was formally established at the MC meeting
on
21 July 1998.
Cairns
and Northern Territory regions have been removed from reporting records
from
21 October 1997 as they have not been active for some years.
In
addition there are a total of 5 memberships pending 2 in the ACT and
3 in Melbourne. This category of membership has been abolished and will
not appear in future reports.
Large
membership losses have again occurred in Sydney, Melbourne and the ACT.
The membership loss can be directly attributed to large public access sites
leaving APANA and taking most of the members using the sites with them
in many cases.
Fortunately
the trend of APANA members migrating to cheap isps appears to have reversed
as many cheap providers go out of business through an inability to pay
for their connections. We can only watch events unfold with interest.
Membership
losses were more than compensated for by the smaller regions which all
showed excellent growth figures.A
special commendation must go to the Perth/Western Australia Region who
more than doubled their membership to make them the fourth largest region.
In
addition, many organisations are now turning to APANA for cheap, reliable
Internet access that they cannot easily obtain from commercial isps.This
is opening up a new market for membership in all regions.Development
of this market is to be encouraged as it represents a steady cash flow
to the regions.
New
Regions:
Special
mention must be made of our two new regions for the year Hunter and Northern
Wollongong.While Hunter was already
established as a hub before affiliating with APANA, Northern Wollongong
is commencing from scratch.We wish
both these new regions continued success and hope that next year they will
post equally as impressive membership figures as Perth.
Membership
Database:
The
membership database is giving us problems from time to time. Last Christmas
Eve it went into a continuos loop with an all members mail-out and again
recently with the preliminary AGM mail-out. While not directly the fault
of the database, we think (we hope) this mail-out problem has now been
solved thanks to Chris Cogdon.
Apologies
again to those members inconvenienced by receiving sometimes hundreds of
copies of the one email.
A
further problem arose recently when the database went ballistic.Thanks
to Scott Neville and Chris Cogdon for eventually pulling it back into line.
Mid
year the Management Committee purchase a new machine to house the DNS and
the Database.Since then, apart
from a few teething problems, all seems to be going well and DNS updates
are now being dealt with relatively efficiently by Scott Neville.Thanks
Scott.To improve this efficiency
even further an automated DNS procedure is under consideration and it is
planned to detail its operation at the AGM for immediate implementation.
Official
Documents:
Regions
are advised to ensure they only have the latest versions of official documents
on-line. Apart from the inconvenience and confusion this causes to members,
there are also serious legal ramifications. It is best if they link directly
to the national APANA pages rather than mirror them locally.
All
agendas and minutes of meetings should be posted as soon as they are approved
to relevant pages on the web.As
an interim they can be posted to the relevant newsgroup in the region.Some
regions failures to do this in a timely manner has generated many complaints
over the past twelve months.Because
of the nature of APANA the minutes are the only way many members keep up
with what is happening.We must
all ensure we do not deny them this opportunity through late posting of
minutes.
Regional
Committees are also reminded of the importance of keeping accurate records
of loans and donations of equipment.
As
part of ensuring that APANA is operating within the law in all the Australian
jurisdictions, the obtaining of an Australian Registered Body Number was
undertaken.This number ¾
081 355 722 ¾
must now appear on all official documents/publications of APANA, including
home pages.
Finally,
I must remind regions regarding the need for certain correspondence to
be handled at a national level.The
secretary does not wish to increase his work load nor does he wish to take
away from regions the right to conduct their own affairs.However,
certain correspondence that relates to APANA as a whole rather than a specific
region only, is best handled by the MC/Secretary rather than some one in
a region.
Newsgroups:
This
was another area to generate a great deal of correspondence during the
year and one very fiery management meeting.
Would
all site operators please note that ALL APANA newsgroups are private newsgroups
and as such are not available for distribution to non-APANA sites/members
unless prior approval of the Management Committee has been given.Any
such external sites must guarantee not to pass on APANA newsgroups to the
outside world.
All
members please note.To avoid APANA
newsgroups leaking it is essential that you do not cross-post APANA newsgroups
with other newsgroups.Cross posting
seems to be the way many non-members have found out about our newsgroups.
While
all this may seem draconian to some members, it is essential if we are
to:
(a)retain
APANA newsgroups as places we can all, as members, freely exchange ideas
andthoughts without fear of outsiders
seeing what we say and therefore free of certain legal implications.
(b)Avoid
receiving tons of SPAM in our newsgroups, something that happens every
now and then only at present.
Censorship:
The
view taken by the Management Committee is that anything can be posted by
members providing it doesnt bring the good name of APANA into disrepute
or is in breach of the laws of Australia and its states and territories.
It
is not the policy of the Management Committee or anyone else in APANA to
censor what is published on the Internet by APANA members and through APANA
sites providing:
(a)APANA
has not been instructed by the relevant government authorities that such
and such a posting is illegal.
(b)The
material posted is not in breach of our Acceptable User Policy and/or Terms
and Conditions of Connection.
(c)The
material is not in breach of copyright.
Hand
in hand with censorship must go language used.Again,
what language a person uses on the Internet is dictated by the circumstances:
the Management Committee has no intention of being involved in drawing
up a list of proscribed words or the like.All
it asks of members is that they think carefully about what they write,
particularly in newsgroups, and avoid answering in the heat of the moment.
If everyone is just that little more carefully (we all offend at times)
they perhaps some of those rather personal flame wars that marred the year
will be avoided in future. It is far easier to say something on the net
you will later regret, than it is in person.
Sometimes
the harm done to your own reputation and even APANAs as well, can be quite
enormous, from a few words badly chosen in haste.
As
all APANA members are responsible people it is hoped the Management Committee
will never have to take action against a member under Rule 10 because of
material that member has posted.
The
Future:
As
we approach the second last year of the millenium APANA is at the crossroads.
Internet
use is exploding and even small country western towns now have isps.Although
we are still basically a hobby group in that we experiment, give our services
voluntarily to APANA, and dont expect the same standards of service as
we would receive from a commercial isp, we still must be professional in
our outlook and attitudes at all times.
If
APANA is to retain members and grow we must show our professionalism proudly.We
must:
(a)ensure
members receive the highest possible service at all times.
(b)keep
our equipment in A1 reliable condition to minimise downtimes.
(c)recover
from downtimes and system failures as quickly as possible.
(d)respond
quickly and courteously to all members inquiries and problems.
Although
we are not a commercial isp, we should try to match their service standards
as closely as possible.All the officers,
committee members and other key personal may be volunteers, but we are
still all stakeholders in a quite large corporation, and we should endeavour
to give our best at all times.
At
times in the past twelve months service to our client members has not been
as good as it should be.Before
taking on a position of responsibility in APANA a person should ensure
they have the time available to devote to that position, AND be willing
to devote the time required.Unless
this philosophy is applied APANA will soon whither and die as members turn
to commercial isps who do provide the service standards they have come
to expect.
APANA
has a chance to expand in the organisational market place.This
means more regions will be able to afford ISDN lines or upgrade to larger
pipes.Unless we do this we will
not be able to accommodate new technologies as they are released as we
will not be able to provide connections of the required speed and bandwidth.The
result will be a dramatic drop in membership and the eventual dissolution
of APANA.It is all our interests
to keep our membership up and to expand it into more remunerative fields.This
will only happen if we provide the highest quality service possible with
our volunteer labour.
As
a further inducement to membership perhaps regions could enhance their
regional meetings and engage in more social activities of various types
which could include guest speakers or workshops on various aspects of the
computing industry.
Finally,
I would like to thank those members who have given me assistance in the
time I have been your Secretary, especially Mirko Fluher without whom my
job would be much more difficult, if not impossible to perform.
Please
see separate documents appended.
The
ACT Region of APANA continues to provide excellent facilities to it's local
members.The 128 kb/s Internet feed
has proven itself as an essential regional facility.This
link feeds 9 APANA sites including a second hub. The second hub itself
feeds multiple, non-PAS, permanently connected members.Through
careful planning of bandwidth feeds, the 128 kb/s link never experiences
congestion, providing the ACT region with a consistent and stable link
to the rest of the world.
The
region was saddened last year with the sudden death of Chris Rogers, the
owner and administrator of the ROSELLA public access site.As
always the core members of the region pulled together, this time to support
Chris' widow, Beth, during the Christmas and New Year period.Working
with Beth, the ROSELLA site was transferred early in 1998 to another ACT
member who has continued to provide the same excellent service that ROSELLA
members had become accustom.
For
the first time since it's conception, the ACT region has had to respond
to decreasing membership.This has
not come as a surprise to the region given the more competitive Internet
connection that are now on offer from commercial ISPs. Even though APANA
remains more than an ISP and offers the best value in town for Internet
access we, as a region, have had to face the reality of a 15% membership
drop.To compensate for this the
region has recently embarked on an advertising campaign to raise awareness
of what APANA is and what we offer our members.We
are optimistic that this will increase membership to between 200 and 220
members - a figure that the ACT Regional Committee has agreed is optimal
for our current infrastructure.
Brisbane
Region is currently functioning on a skeleton Committee with the Resignation
of its Regional Co-ordinator (RC).
Brisbane
hub was previously located at the residential premises of the RC.One
of the conditions directed to BRC was to find an "alternative" location.BRC
agreed to co-locating with Brisbane Internet Technology (BIT).
Co-Location
with BIT resulting in our region having to pay for the installation/relocation
of 28 lines. 20 of these were purchased from BIT (via Telstra) at a cost
of $1,000 the remaining 8 having to be charged at $173 for the first line
and approx $150.00 for the remaining 7). Total cost, phone lines only,
being approx $2,300
BIT
will be invoicing APANA $200.00 per month, this consists of $85.00 per
month for our News Feed and $115 per month co-location cost.Cabling
at the new premises cost APANA approximately $45.
BRC
also took this opportunity to upgrade our MODEM on our main link into Telstra
Big Pond Direct to 56kbps ready for Big Pond Directs upgrade of all their
MODEM expected within the next two months.The
MODEM was provided at cost to APANA by Brisbane
Internet
Technology.
We
are currently in the process of installing a third server, moving our web
cache functions from our main server to a separate machine.A
few other service may also be moved.This
will be at the discretion of our Systems Administrator.
Membership
figures remain steady and is sufficient to meet our current needs.
Brisbane
Regional Committee will be calling for the election of a new committee
by the end of July.This period
providing time for the current committee to tie up a few loose ends consisting
of :
Insurance
of equipment,
update
of Assets Register, and
correction
of long outstanding discrepancies on our Telstra Bill.
The
Northern Wollongong region has only been just formed, and has not therefore
an official committee yet.Our first
Annual General Meeting is to be held on the 12th July, where the committee
will be elected.The forming members
have much vision for this region, and are very enthusiastic about its success
as an APANA region for many years to come.
Currently
there are around 12 members, and there are many more showing interest in
the local area.A publicity campaign
has begun with all members letting people know by word of mouth, brochures
have been distributed around the local towns, adds placed in community
papers and on notice boards, and even a newspaper article will shortly
be published.We are positive that
there will be a healthy membership of at least 50 people within a month
or so of the region forming.
As
to the financial plan so far, nothing has officially been set yet, as the
membership base needed to make the network viable has not yet been reached.It
will start out as a 33k6 permanent modem connection to a Wollongong ISP
'Rainbow.net', who have been extremely nice and helpful with our initial
inquires, so much so that they took nearly $1000 off the yearly fee when
they heard our cause!
Our
initial setup would be something like the following:
2
Pentiums running Free-BSD or Linux; Cyclades 8-Yo; A dedicated 33k6 modem
to Rainbow.net; a dialup ratio of around 10:1 (around 5 dial-ups to begin
with).
Financially,
this is approximately the cost of the above setup:
First
year:
Rainbow.net
Charges - Install$0
Annual
access$2775
SUB-TOTAL$2775
Telstra
Charges- 50
pair install,
line
connection$820
Monthly
Fee's$864
SUB-TOTAL$4459
Hardware
Costs -2 x Servers with
network
card$2000
Modem
purchase$1000
SUB-TOTAL$7459
TOTAL$7459
Second
Year:
The
cost in the second year drops down to $3639 due to the initial hardware
purchase and installation costs incurred during the first year.
So
in summary of the financial situation:
Year
A - $7500
Year
B - $3650
All
members of this region so far think that this is a fair analysis of costs
and are willing to contribute fairly to the setup and ongoing costs of
APANA in this region.ISP costs
are based on the best deal that was offered from numerous local-call ISP's,
including the larger one's such as Telstra Bigpond, Telstra Direct, Ozemail,
One.net etc.Rainbow.net was substantially
lower and offers better support as well, as they have competent staff,
and have a corporate goal of helping organizations such as APANA (not-for-profit).
We
still hope to have in the near future ISDN access to the net, and I think
that this will be quite achievable if membership numbers increase to 80
or above.As the town of Helensburgh
is quite close-knit, we think that there would be huge interest in APANA
if it's presence and aims were known.Helensburgh
is, as far as we can see, under the 24km boundary from Campbelltown, which
would mean a substantially lower cost of ISDN access than if it were run
from Wollongong City or Sydney.Also,
ozemail has been quite keen to maintain our interest in ISDN access to
them, offering good pricing and much more support than they need give.
Also
on our goal list is to approach local government MP's to see if they would
consider putting some capital and maybe some ongoing financial assistance
for Northern Wollongong region of APANA to improve the quality of this
community service.If this were
a possibility and if it went ahead, then these funds would go towards the
lowering of the cost for each member, and towards the improvement of the
service that APANA offers.
All
in all I think that the Northern Wollongong region has a good future ahead
of it, this being based on the current memberships general enthusiasm.
In
some ways it is reassuring to report that not much has changed here in
the last year.In last year's report,
I suggested that extensive growth as NOT one of our goals - our membership
was at a comfortable level and better service to our members seemed more
relevant.This has
been
the theme for the last year, and one which most members seem to be comfortable
with.We've invested significantly
in upgrading our hub equipment and new lines and have generally had a pretty
reliable service to our members.Our
news feed has probably been the one unsatisfactory area, with an unreliable
connection causing havoc with a connection that is very heavily loaded
even at the best of times.
We
have had a number of new members over the year, despite no activities aimed
at advertising - I guess word of mouth is pretty effective!Of
course, we have lost some members too - there will always be some attrition
rate.But, overall, our membership
is at around the level we aim at.And
matching that, our finances are in pretty good shape too, at around $13,000,
which is up about $2500 from last year.
Two
seemingly never-ending problems are "spam" and "hackers".We,
like many others, have had our fair share of this - the only cure seems
to be to remain vigilant and ensure that we put in place all of the relevant
safeguards. This type of thing is particularly annoying for volunteer organisations,
because it means unexpected and urgent demands can be made on our team
at ANY time, through no fault of our own.
Which
leads me on to the "thankyous". There are, as usual, far too many people
to name individually.However, the
tech group, the "admin dudes" (who look after new members), the RC and
various special role holders have all done an excellent job.We
re-arranged the tasks and about twelve months ago - it was much more difficult
than we expected, and reinforces the danger of becoming too reliant on
one or two individuals!However,
we
have emerged with a broader, balanced set of skills across a somewhat larger
team, which must equip us well for the future.
To
all of those people, I'd like to express a sincere and heartfelt "thankyou"
for your efforts.
Finally,
we have many plans for the future, with more and better facilities.I
have been in the Regional Coordinator's role for two and a half years now,
and feel it is time for some "new blood".I
do not intend to stand for that position at our forthcoming regional meeting,
although I shall stand for a position on the RC.To
all of the people who have helped me
over
this period, I'd like to extend my thanks and appreciation - you have made
my job very easy!