Winds Backing the East – Update on DRP

People familiar with sailing or fishing in open waters tend to keep a “weather eye” on the sky. Any consistent shift in wind direction is noted. We do the same in monitoring our project and we have noted the first indication of a wind shift. When winds back towards the East, it often portends a storm. We have the first indication of such a change. Our costs just increased from our estimates.

        We have completed filming 46 of the 60 lessons of the first level of the program. We are still 20% ahead of schedule, but the lessons are getting consistently longer. We will likely complete 8-10 more lessons before Christmas at our current pace of production, but it is requiring more of Andrew’s time to prepare these longer lessons for videoing. As a result, our video costs increased in November by approximately $750.00 beyond our budget estimate.

       This will likely even out in terms of the overall costs, given that we are ahead of schedule, but it strains our cashflow. We will continue to keep a close eye on this budget item and report any concerns in future updates. It could be a storm that will pass well to the North of us as many storms do, or worst case a blow from which we can easily escape by running into a safe harbour.

       Michael Summers and the Nesda staff report that they are still on time and on budget with no obvious issues. They will have to fiddle with the connections between our website payment system (Moneris) and our website shopping cart, but that was expected from the beginning.

      In short, we are still doing fine, just a potential blip from overextending our video costs.

We have scheduled a full team meeting with Nesda for Friday, December 20th after which we will wrap up our video work for the Christmas break.  Michael Summers and Nesda will likely do the same. I will report on that meeting in our December 20th update.

     Lynne and I will be off to Myrtle Beach, SC after Christmas. As usual, I will set up my home office and run the company’s affairs from there as we have for the past 6 years. None of our communication systems will be affected, just our locale. You will always be able to reach us.

     Keep an eye for red skies in the morning.  Bless those red skies at night.  Let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Your support is allowing our creativity with the hope of teaching legions of students to become literate. Thanks.

Regards,

 Michael