When I began this job the first thing I needed to know was 'What is the Treasurer
  responsible for?' 
  I have come up with the following list, so far: 
  1. Bank Account 
  2. Memberships 
  3. The Discounted Software Program 
  4. Members Mailing List on the Server 
  5. Data Backups 
  
  This is what has happened with each of these items. 
  
  1. Bank Account: 
     The balance of the VOICE bank account has been transferred from Kitimat to 
     an account here in Toronto and the Kitimat account has been closed.   
     (The account here is a Canadian dollar account. Whoever does this job next  
     should look seriously at the possibility of having an American dollar account, 
     no matter what country the account is in.  ALL of our revenue and most of our  
     bills are in American dollars and figuring the exchange all the time is a real PITA.) 
  
     I started keeping paper records of the transactions but Roderick encouraged  
     me to use an electronic system, so I have set one up using In Charge.   
     (I looked briefly at MoneyDance but did not use it because it seems to have  
     only one field for recording the particulars of the transaction.) 
  
     In In Charge I have used the COMMENT field to name the member and   
     (mis)used the TAX field to record the reason for the income  
     (e.g. the membership type, or Norman purchase), or outgo (e.g.   
     purchase of Norman Licence); and the BUDGET field to record the channel of  
     payment, (i.e. Mensys or BMT or cheque),     
     We need to keep track of this because Mensys wants us to let them know when they  
     owe us [bleep!], and also we should be able to determine how much BMT Micro  
     owes us at any given time. 
  
     Ken has put my address on our website for applicants to mail cheques to me if  
     they don't want to use Mensys or BMT Micro.  That line is working OK. 
  
     There is a difficulty entering the transactions into In Charge, (or any such  
     program).  When I enter a new member or renewal I am showing the date of  
     membership, 
     and the amount of the entry as zero dollars because we have no money to deposit at 
     that time, as the money has gone to Mensys or BMT Micro.  The money is entered  
     into In Charge at the time the money is deposited into the account,  
     i.e. when BMT sends a cheque or Mensys makes a transfer.  This way In Charge  
     shows correctly both the date of the membership application and our bank balance.   
  
     I have received a cheque from BMT Micro, so they have my address.  There are  
     still 2 cheques from them unaccounted for.  I'm still investigating this. 
  
     The bank account has received a SWIFT transfer from Mensys, so this line seems  
     to be OK. 
  
     I recently heard from Mark Dodel that the cheque from the membership applicants 
     at last year's Warpstock had not been cashed.  He has offered to send me a  
     replacement. 
     I also heard from Matt Walsh that his cheque for the last membership had not been  
     cashed.  He mailed me a replacement. 
  
  2. Memberships:  
     I got the membership database from Peter.  It runs under DBExpert.   
     It showed far fewer members than were listed on our website in the 'members' list.   
     I sent out a notice to each person whose membership had expired inviting  
     them to rejoin and a dozen or so did.  
     I also discovered that many e-mail addresses were bad.  Where the e-mail address 
     is bad I have opted to remove the bad address from the database. 
  
     There is a problem with the personal information about applicants that Mensys sends  
     us.  They send us only the name, e-mail address, date of application, and level of 
     membership.  In contrast, BMT Micro collects and sends that information plus  
     home address, phone number, IRC nick, user type, etc.  
     So one 'action item' is to contact Mensys to see if they can collect and send us 
     more data on applicants. 
  
     I am now scanning the database at intervals to catch those whose membership will  
     expire soon and sending them a reminder.  I am also sending each new member a  
     confirmation notice that I have received and processed his application.  These 
     letters are stored in PMMail as canned replies.  I'm trying to automate this  
     work as much as possible.  To that end I'm learning how to use the canned replies 
     in PMMail, macros, forms, and queries in DBExpert, and the batch processing in  
     In Charge.  I'm hoping to tie it all together with REXX programs. 
     We are getting a small but steady stream of renewals.  We have about [bleep!] paid  
     members. 
  
  3. Discounted Software Program:    
     I exchanged many e-mails with Vaughn Bender, sorting out the Norman Anti-Virus  
     plan 
     and how it works.  I think I have that straight now.  It is written up in the 
     Treasurer Hat document. 
     
     I got the info on Contact/2.  It is written up. 
  
  4. Members Mailing List On the Server: 
     This was showing around [bleep!] so-called members.  However, according to the  
     DBExpert 
     database this number included everyone who had ever been a member but hadn't  
     died. 
     Based on the responses I got from the broad mailing and the the dates in the  
     database 
     that showed the active members, the 'members' mailing list on the server now  
     includes only those who are paid up, around [bleep!] people. 
  
     Maintaining the mailing list has been a bit difficult to date.  Ken is working on 
     this for me.  The only method currently available is to add and remove members by
     e-mails to majormajor. 
  
  5. Data Backups:  
     At present I am backing up:  
     the entire VOICE set of books in In Charge;  
     the entire PMMail VOICE account (all e-mails and replies and canned replies);  
     the entire DBExpert database (including tables, queries, forms, reports and macros); 
     the hat writeup;      other supporting text files.   
     These are all put into a ZIP file and uploaded to the VOICE server.  I'm still working on 
     the best timing and frequency for the uploads. 
  
  
  The main activity now is keeping information to see what accumulates and then 
  deciding how to organize it to save it for posterity and to make information easy to find.
  This is an ongoing activity.
  
  Something new I have started is a 'hat writeup'.  This is a job description with fairly
  complete descriptions of each action I do, so that if I get hit by a low-flying plane the next
  treasurer will know what to do.  I recommend each of you do a similar writeup.
  
  Gordon Snider
  Acting Treasurer - VOICE