A Big HURRAH For Our First Quarter, Plus Financials

[fredx]

First of all, a great big shout-out to all of us for making it through and coming out the other side. First quarter over and done and we're going strong. Yay US!







This is a summary of the New Roadmap Foundation Annual Meeting items that I feel pertain to SLF, taken loosely from the minutes with some of my own comments inserted. I apologize for not collecting any community input in advance, but invite anyone with comments or questions or suggestions for future meetings to post them here.

Annual Meeting, Board of Directors, New Road Map Foundation

The annual meeting of the New Road Map Foundation was held on April 22, 2011, starting at 1PM (West Coast) via teleconference. Directors constituting a quorum of the board were present at the meeting.

The incorporation of Simple Living Forums has gone well and resulted in a larger New Road Map. Things seem to be going very well after a very smooth transition. There's been lots of participation from previously quiet folks. So many thanks to the old team moderators who helped get us over the hump, as well as the new faces breathing life into our mod team.


There are about three times as many guests as members, which is a positive. The finances seem fine, matching increased expenses with increased donations.

Classes and Training (online and real world) (Rozie)
The 9-Step classes held on Whidbey Island are going very well. It is time to begin teaching others how to teach the classes, probably as a weekend workshop. Organizing the classes may require hiring help. Existing classes, instructors, and SLF activity will be tapped. The classes would probably be free, but attendees would have to pay for travel, lodging, and food.

{I am including this here because NRM would also like to set up a participatory forum here for people interested in supporting each other's outreach efforts and potentially taking classes in teaching for teachers.}


The 2011 budget will be revised to reflect SLF. The largest unknown is the income and expenses for NRM is associated with SLF, but the increased expenses are being matched with increased donations. For now, paid tech support is okay though if the forums produce ad hoc support then expenses may come down. A motion was made and approved to add $500 to the 2011 budget to the previously approved 2011 for SLF related expenses. A complete listing of financials is provided below, courtesy of Fredx.


There was discussion of starting a blog to replace the defunct SLN Newsletter. Different ideas including a round robin of weekly contributors or possibly simply a summary of our most interesting threads with no new material were discussed. No conclusion was reached about this (but if anyone is interesting in spearheading this, by all means speak up!)


And that's all, folks! We're off to a good start with some exciting new developments in the wings, and it would be great to get some community input about it.


Hats off to y'all for a successful move and a great beginning.


Kib


From Fred:

As discussed, here is the accounting for SLF thus far. We're aiming to provide full transparency in the finances for SLF to enable the community to have the feedback it needs to remain financially sustainable for the long term. Thanks!

Here are the cash flow numbers for SLF thus far:

FY10 Q4 (setting up SLF):

Income:

SLF Donations $ 480.00
------------------------------------------ --------
TOTAL: $ 480.00

Expenses:

SLF Bank & Business fees $ 13.81
SLF Web & Internet expenses 568.65
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TOTAL: $ 582.46

SLF NET CASH FLOW (Income minus expenses): $-102.46


FY11 Q1 (our first 3 months of SLF operations):

Income:

SLF donations: $1138.00
------------------------------------------ --------
TOTAL: $1138.00


Expenses:

SLF Bank & Business fees $ 5.74
SLF Contract labor (Helen) 755.00
SLF Web & Internet expenses 57.82
------------------------------------------ --------
TOTAL: $ 818.56

SLF NET CASH FLOW (Income minus expenses): $319.44

SLF NET CASH FLOW SINCE INCEPTION: $216.98

Projected Annual SLF Budget:

vBulletin hosting through URLJet costs $195.92 per 6 months, for a total of $391.84/year.

admin@simplelivingforum.net email is $6.99/year

SLF domain names total about $70.00/year (this is an estimate)

That gives us a grand total of $468.83/year, plus contract labor (i.e. Helen).

We spent $755.00 for Helen's time on SLF activities in Q1. Projected to an annual figure, this would be $3020.00/year.

TOTAL ANNUAL SLF Budget: $3488.83

NOTE: Donations to NRM are tax-deductible, since it's a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (this was not the case with the Simple Living Network).

Thanks,

- Fred

[dovergirl]

Thanks for the info!

[loosechickens]

It's so nice to have an accounting, so we know what expenses are and how our contributions are adding up to cover them. These forums are really important to all of us who participate, and I think that people are more than willing to contribute when they know where their money goes and how it is spent. We all recognize that hosting a forum isn't free, and think we can be depended upon to pony up when needed.

thanks so much for posting this.

[iris lily]

Excellent that you two, kib and fredx, are reporting the costs of this site. Again, I very much thank the New Road Map foundation for taking on the SL forums.
It is good to know what the annual fundraising goal is.

Honestly? I doubt that we'll make it. But time will tell. The forums have been losing active participants and the money to cover only occasional posters may not be forthcoming.

[gimmethesimplelife]

I personally am glad to see the accounting in place and will be making a donation within a week - once I am packed up and have hit the road for the season and know where I stand I will donate and help keep this place afloat. Rob

[Gina]

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, it looks as if things are going well.

A big Thank You to everyone who have both been working behind the scenes as well as active forum participants.

[HKPassey]

Excellent that you two, kib and fredx, are reporting the costs of this site. Again, I very much thank the New Road Map foundation for taking on the SL forums.
It is good to know what the annual fundraising goal is.

Honestly? I doubt that we'll make it. But time will tell. The forums have been losing active participants and the money to cover only occasional posters may not be forthcoming.

Hopefully we're doing better than that.

Maybe some numbers would help? We did have a dip in activity between April 1 and 15 (any guesses why??), but otherwise things have been pretty steady since mid-January. The most people we've had online at one time is 108, and as of today the top poster has 925 posts. We get an average of about 6-7 new registration requests daily (mostly legit now that we've beefed up the spam defenses), and at any given time there are 2-3 times as many guests viewing the site as registered members. (Who knew?) Rough estimates, we average about 175 new posts per day, with 79 on the slowest day so far. New threads, looks like about 10 per day, and both posts and threads have picked up again the last couple weeks. Total "user activity" (whatever that means) surged intensely in late March (by nearly 50%), then in April dropped back to the lowest level so far, but has been gaining steadily since 4/15.

The NRM periodic newsletter goes out to over 600 subscribers: yesterday's edition featured a lengthy article about the forums' new home, with an invitation to come check us out here. Can't hurt!

[Mrs-M]

Thank you so much for the information! As an outspoken critic Re: how things were done in the past (old forum), I'm very pleased to know there is accountability and transparency here.

[razz]

I am due to donate and will do so shortly as well. Well done everyone!!